Defying the Odds (A George Weasley Fanfic)
by missscarlatti713
Summary: Libra Malfoy is driven out because her father learned she's had a crush on George Weasley ever since 4th year. She's scared to admit it to him because the way she figures they're defying the odds enough by being friends and she doesn't want to risk it with more. But what if he feels the same way? Can he convince her that love is worth the risk? Follow the book more than the movie
1. Prologue

Prologue

I wasn't expecting much the morning of my seventeenth birthday. But one thing I was most definitely not expecting was to be told I had twenty-four hours to get out for good.

Perhaps some background is necessary. My name is Libra Malfoy, Draco's older sister, and Lucius's least favorite child. Honestly it didn't really start that way. Draco and I were on pretty even standing until I turned eleven. Not to say I like my father. Even as a little kids I knew that there was something off about his beliefs. Somehow I thought my scepticism would forever fly under the radar. And then I got sorted into Gryffindor. Yeah, Dad was less than thrilled.

For the first year he at least borderline tolerated me, and then over the summer he discovered that I had become very good friends with the Weasley twins due to our constant letter sending. Then he got pissed. He never hit me or used curses on me. No, he did the only thing worse. He ignored me. Imagine five years of sitting at the dinner table and your father acting like you don't exist, and because of the kind of control freak he is your mother and brother pretend you're not there either.

So that day I woke up ready for another day of being bored out of my mind. Even though school had only let out for the summer three days ago, I was longing to go back. To be with people who actually cared about me and weren't afraid to show it.

I opened my door to go downstairs for breakfast a nearly had a heart attack. My father was standing outside my door with his hand raised like he was just about to knock. Polite of him. "Oh good you're up."

"Yeah, it's kind of the same time I've been waking up for like the past two years. I've really got the whole body clock thing down now. Not that you would notice of course."

"Well now that you of age-"

I had to interrupt. "Wowwwwww. You remember my birthday. You know I think I will get you that "Number One Dad" goblet for Christmas. You've earned it."

"If you're quite finished." It really freaks me out how calm he always is. "Now that you're of age, I think it's safe to say that you can make it in the world on your own. You can take today to pack and make arrangements, but by this time tomorrow I want you out of this house."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"Why? What am I doing so wrong? Because if it's about what house I am then congratulations you're way more shallow than I could have ever imagined."

"I won't have a blood traitor in my house."

"Really? This is because I'm best friends with Fred and George. Really?"

"From what I hear you don't just want that."

He might as well have dumped ice water over my head. I've had a crush on George since fourth year. But he should not know that. "I don't know what you're talking about?"

"Really? From what I hear you've been 'in love' with one George Weasley for quite a while now."

"Who told you?"

He glanced down the hall and I saw Draco trying to scamper around the corner out of sight. "I see you. I thought we were better friends than this."

I got no response. I shook my head. I'll deal with him at school. "Fine." I know what's going to eventually going to go down and I didn't want to be trapped in this house when Voldy comes by for a visit.

I walked back through my doorway and shut the door behind me. I immediately wrote a letter to the twins explaining what has happened. I attached it to my hawk owl Dakota's leg. "Take this to Fred and George, fast. And thanks."

She nipped at my hair before taking off out the window. When she was out of sight I started packing, shoving only essentials into my trunk. Books, robes, clothes, my collection of pranks. Like I said only the essentials. Once I deemed myself ready to bolt at a moment's notice I laid face down on my bed. What a day, and it's not even noon.

After an indeterminate amount of time a very loud noise came from my fireplace. I looked up to see George stepping out of my fireplace. As soon as he was clear Fred appeared. "You rang?" George said with his trademark grin.

"You're parents are actually cool with a Malfoy coming for an extended visit?

"Well for you they'll make an exception. Mum is so excited to meet you, because of everything she's heard from George-"

He was cut off by George elbowing him in the ribs. "He means us, and Ron, and Ginny. We all have good things to say."

"Some of us more than others." Fred said giving George a very weird look.

"Great well let's get going shall we?"


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Guys just because I'm your best friend does not mean I'm going to be your guinea pig." I said as I pushed away the Fainting Fancy 2.0 that Fred was offering. Round one hadn't done much in the fainting department, but it did make them so nauseous that they rebranded it as the Puking Pastille.

"But Libra, don't you want to assist us in creating the best line of products for what will be the best joke shop ever?" The tall redhead pleaded.

"Yes. But if you wanted me to test the edible products, you probably shouldn't have let me see the results of the first test batch."

"That was a one time fluke. And the effects didn't last that long." George said.

I took the sweet from his twin and held it out to him. "Well if you're so sure you try it first. If it works I'll try one to see if it works consistently.

He opened his mouth to make some smartass remark but was cut off by someone shouting at the top of their lungs. "OH YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN THE MEETINGS, BIG DEAL! YOU'VE STILL BEEN HERE HAVEN'T YOU?"

"Is that who I think it is?" I asked.

"I do believe it is." George said with a grin to match mine.

"The question is when did he get here?"

"Couldn't have been too long ago." Fred said. "Sounds like he just found Ron and Hermione.

"Well if we want to eavesdrop on the meeting we're going to need to shut him up."

"Right you are Miss Malfoy." George said as he stood up and offering me his arm.

I stood up and linked arms with him and his brother. "I told you to never call me that ever again."

"My apologies, Blondie." He said with a grin.

"Don't call me that either."

They just started laughing and we Apparated into Ron's room.

As usual we scared the crap out of Hermione with our arrival. "Stop doing that."

"Sorry hon, not going to happen it's just too much fun." I apologized without really apologizing.

"What are you even doing here Libra?" Harry asked.

"Work on your greetings Potter. It's a long story. Tell ya later."

"Hello Harry," George said with his usual cheer. "We thought we heard your dulcet tones."

Fred joined in the banter. "You don't want to bottle up your anger like that Harry. Let it all out. There might be a couple of people within fifty miles away who didn't hear you."

Even in a bad mood Harry was able to change the subject without even blinking. "Ao you three have passed your Apparation tests then?"

"With flying colors." I said pulling out my set of Extendable Ears. The twins and I came up with the idea at the beginning of the summer, but we've only had working models for two weeks so we were still working out some kinks, but they worked great, when an angry fifteen year old wasn't verbally abusing his two best friends.

"You know it would have taken you about thirty seconds longer to walk down the stairs." Ron said.

"And where's the fun in that?" I asked.

"That, and time is Galleons, little brother." Fred added. "Now Harry if you keep on like this you'll be interfering with reception."

Harry looked at Extendable Ears with raised eyebrows.

"Extendable Ears." He said holding them up so Harry can get a better look. "We're trying to hear what's going on downstairs."

"You want to be careful," Ron said. "If Mum sees one of them again.."

"Well the plan is to not get caught Ron." I said. "And it's worth the risk. Tonight is a major meeting."

The door opened and the youngest Weasley entered the room.

"Oh hello Harry. I thought I heard your voice."

"Who in this house hasn't?" I muttered.

The twins were the only ones who heard me and let at a couple of snickers that earned a glare from Hermione.

Ginny then turned to the three of us. "It's a no go with the Extendable Ears, she's gone and put an Imperturbable Charm on the kitchen door."

George looked absolutely heartbroken. "How d'you know?"

"Tonks told me how to find out. You just chuck stuff at the door and if is doesn't make contact the door's been Imperturbabled. I've been flicking Dungbombs at it from the top of the stairs and they just soar away. There's no way Extendable Ears are getting underneath that gap."

Fred sighed. "Shame. I really fancied finding out what old Snape's been up to."

"Snape?" Harry asked. "Is he here?"

"Yeah," George said closing the door and sitting on one of the beds. Taking it as a sign we were going to be here a while I joined him, followed by Fred and Ginny.

"He's giving a report." I continued for him. "Top secret."

"Git." Fred said.

"He's own our side now." Hermione.

Ron snorted. "That doesn't stop him from being a git. The way he looks at us when he sees us…"

I cut him off. "Trust me Ron it's easier when you've been associated with the good guys from day one. You get the 'I hate you darn kids' look , I get the 'You're a traitor to your family and you're kind' look."

Ginny not wanting to hear us argue attempted to close the matter. "Bill doesn't like him either.

Harry sat on the other bed and took advantage of the opening to change the subject. "Bill's here? I thought he was working in Egypt."

Fred's face morphed into a Cheshire cat grin. "He applied for a desk job so he could come home and work for the Order. He says he misses the tombs, but there are compensations…"

"What do you mean?"

 _This is why you aren't in Ravenclaw._

Everyone just stared at me.

"I said that out loud didn't I?"

"Indeed you did love." George said. "Anyway, remember old Fleur Delacour? She's got a job at Gringotts to _eemprove 'er Eeenglish-"_

"-And Bill's been giving her a lot of private lessons." Fred finished.

"You guys are five year olds." I said while rolling my eyes. "In an effort to get back on track, Charlie's in the Order too, but he's still in Romania. He's recruiting during his off hours. Dumbledore wants as many foreign wizards brought in a possible."

"Why can't Percy do that?"

We all shared a look. I led the reply. "Well dang Harry. You've been here for half an hour and you're already asking the touchy questions. I applaud you."

"What?"

"Whatever you do don't mention Percy in front of Mum and Dad." Ron told him tensely.

"Why not?"

"Well, every time his name is mentioned, Dad breaks whatever he's holding and Mum starts crying."

"It's been awful." Ginny said softly.

I reached my leg over George's and gave her a nudge. She gave me a smile.

George's expression went dark. "I think we're well shut of him."

"What's happened?"

"World War Three." I said, wincing when the twins both elbowed me.

"Percy and Dad had a row," Fred explained. "I've never seen Dad row with anyone like that. It's usually Mum who shouts…"

Ron picked up where he left off. "It was the first week after term ended. We were about to come and join the Order and Percy came home and told us he had been promoted."

"You're kidding?"

"Yeah we were all surprised." George said. "Percy got into a load of trouble about Crouch, there was an inquiry and everything. They said Percy ought to have realized Crouch was off his rocker and informed a superior. But you know Percy, Crouch left him in charge, he wasn't going to complain."

"So how come they promoted him?"

"That my friend is the question of the month."

"Hush Libra. My brother, I get to tell the story." Ron said to me before turning his attention back to Harry. "He came home really pleased with himself and told Dad that he'd been offered a position in Fudge's office:Junior Assistant to the Minister. I think he expected Dad to be impressed."

"Only Dad was less than impressed."Fred said.

"Why not?"

George answered. "Apparently Fudge has been storming around the Ministry checking that nobody's having any contact with Dumbledore."

"His name is ud in the Ministry these days. They all think he's just making trouble saying You-Know-Who is back." If it's not obvious at this point, the twins are tag teaming this explanation.

"Dad says Fudge has made it clear that anyone who's in league with Dumbledore can clear out their desks."

"Trouble is Fudge suspects Dad, he knows he's friendly with Dumbledore, and he's always thought Dad was a bit of a weirdo because of the Muggle obsession-"

"What does this have to do with Percy?"

"We're getting there Dad reckons Fudge only wants Percy in his office so he can use him to spy on the family. And Dumbledore.

Harry whistled. "I bet Percy loved that."

Ron gave a empty laugh. "In short: he went absolutely beserk. He loads of terrible stuff, which ended with him saying if Mum and Dad were going to be traitors to the Ministry he was going to make sure that everyone knew he didn't belong to our family anymore. That same night he packed up and moved to London."

"Mum's been in a right state." Ron said. "Crying and stuff. She went up to London to talk to Percy and he slammed the door in her face."

"But he must know the Voldemort's back. He's not stupid. He must know that your mum and dad wouldn't risk everything without proof-"

"That's another fun point." I interjected. "I was there for this bit. Your name got dragged in too. Percy feels that you're an unreliable source, and since that's the only evidence...well."

"What are you talking about?"

We all looked at each other and back at him. we were back to treading on dangerous territory. One wrong word and he would be back to screaming at the top of his lungs. He's a bit over dramatic like that.

"Haven't you been getting _The Daily Prophet_?" Hermione asked carefully.

"Yeah. I have!"

"Have you, er, been reading it thoroughly?"

"Well not cover to cover. If they were going to report anything on Voldemort it would be headline news wouldn't it?"

Everyone flinched but me. I was raised by Death Eaters, I was a little more immune to Voldy's name. In fact at this point I'm spiteful and dumb enough to call him that to his face if I ever get the chance. Seeing as Hermione was now to anxious about Harry's reaction to continue I took over. "If you had taken the time to get your money's worth out of reading that thing you would pick up on it. They mention you a couple of times a week."

"I would've seen-"

Hermione was back in action. "Not if you're only reading the front page. It's not the big articles. They just kind of slip you in as a running joke. It's quite nasty actually. They're building on Rita's stuff."

Footsteps could be heard coming up to the door. We all froze.

George and I hid our Extendable Ears in our pockets. Fred had already run his out the door in hopes of catching something from the kitchen, and was now having trouble reeling it back in. "Uh-oh."

Luckily he got it back and we Apparated back to their room.

"Well I suppose we should act normal and head down to dinner then." I said walking out the door.

We got to the stairs and saw the the Order was still gathered in the hallway. We shared a grin as Fred pulled the Ears back out and started to lower them over the railing. Harry looked up at us and I waved and motioned for him to be quiet. Sadly the group moved on.

"Dammit." Fred said pulling the string back up.

We Apparated to the kitchen and had just sat down when were heard a crash followed by Mrs. Weasley yelling at Tonks.

"Oh not again." I groaned, slouching down so I was practically under the table.

It took three minutes for them to shut that stupid portrait up.

"Why don't they just light it on fire?" I asked the twins. "It would get the job done, and things can be slightly more sane around here."

They burst out laughing. "Libra, nothing here is ever going to be sane." Fred said.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Our jokes were interrupted by Mrs. Weasley. "Boys can you help me get everything on the table? No dear they can do it themselves." She added when I started to stand with them. I sat back down. In my time living with the Weasley's I've come to love Mrs. Weasley like a second mother, but I also quickly learned that what she says goes and even if you're trying to help if she tells you to sit down, you sit down.

I was sitting casual listening to Sirius and Harry try to catch up. It was kind of funny, they both were not the best of conversationalists. Mundungus was just starting to act shady when everyone was startled by Mrs Weasley screaming, "Fred, George-NO JUST CARRY THEM!"

We all looked up and dived out of the way as the cauldron of stew, an iron flagon of butterbeer, a breadboard, and a knife flew through the air toward the table. The stew burnt the table, the butterbeer spilled everywhere, and the knife ended up sticking out of the table was Sirius's hand was ten seconds earlier.

"FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE! THERE WAS NO NEED-I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS-JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE OF ALLOWED TO USE MAGIC NOW YOU DON'T NEED TO WHIP YOUR WANDS OUT FOR EVERY TINY LITTLE THING!"

Fred apparently had no sense of self-preservation. "We were just trying to save a little time. Sorry Sirius- didn't mean to-"

Harry and Sirius were laughing so hard they were having trouble breathing. I really wanted to join them, but I did not want to have Mrs. Weasley mad at me when she's this wound up, no matter how fleeting it would be.

Mr Weasley was a bit more calm about the whole thing. "Boys, your mother's right, you're supposed to show a sense of responsibility now that you've come of age-"

"-None of your brothers caused this sort of trouble." Mrs. Weasley continued. "Bill didn't feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn't Charm everything he met! Percy-"

She stopped.

Oh crap. She brought up the other He Should Not Be Named.

Bill jumped in to save the day. "Let's eat."

"Yes, food." I agreed taking my seat again.

"It looks wonderful Molly, said Lupin as he dished out a serving for her.

After a few minutes of awkward silence everyone started dissolving into their own conversations. Fred, George,Ron, and I ended up listening to Mundungus talk about some of his business deals. I admit they are funny. But I did not like this guy at all. To invested in a life of crime and there's also the fact that he ditched Harry for a load of cauldrons.

Mrs. Weasley doesn't like him either. "I don't think we need to hear about any more of your business dealings thank you very much Mundungus.

The twins were dying of laughter and tried to hide it from their mother's disapproving glare by burying their faces in their goblets of butterbeer. I leaned over and whispered to George, "That looks like a brilliant way to drown yourself." That was a mistake, it set him off again, this time laughing even harder.

After dessert the conversation eventually ebbed down. Mrs. Weasley yawned, "Nearly time for bed, I think."

"Not just yet, Molly." Sirius said before turning to Harry. "You know, I'm surprised at you. I thought the first thing you would do when you got here would to start asking questions about Voldemort."

If one more thing ticks Mrs. Weasley off, I think she's going to stroke out. "Sirius, please don't start this tonight."

"Why on earth not?"

"Well I know nothing yet and I'm old enough to go out there and do something." I said under my breath.

He heard me and ignored me. Love the man to death, but of late we had been really getting on each other's nerves.

Harry answered him like I never even spoke. "I did! I asked Ron and Hermione but they said we're not allowed in the Order, so-"

"And they're quite right! You're too young." Do I even need to tell you that was Mrs. Weasley?

"Since when did someone have to be in the Order to ask questions? Harry's been trapped in that Muggle house for a month. He's got a right to know what's been happen-"

"Hang on!" George interrupted.

"How come Harry gets his questions answered?" Fred asked.

I joined the protest. "We've been trying to get stuff out of you for a month and you haven't told us one stinking thing!"

" _You're too young, y_ o _u're not in the Order,"_ I could not believe Fred's ability to imitate his mother's voice. He dropped the act and continued on. "Harry's not even of age!"

"It's not my fault you haven't been told what the Order's doing." Sirius said calmly. "That's your parent's decision-"

I raised my hand. "My parents relinquished their claim on me."

He continued on as if I never spoke. "-Harry on the other hand-"

"It's not down to you to decide what's !" Mrs. Weasley burst out.

I scooted back from the table. I knew what was coming. It was going to be another argument about Sirius's irresponsibility with Harry, slightly altered because Harry is now here. I tuned back in when she told us to clear out. "Wait what?"

"We're of age!" The twins shouted in unison.

"If Harry's allowed why can't I?" Ron asked

Ginny employed the whining strategy, "Mum, I want to!"

"NO!" She said. "I absolutely forbid it."

"You can't stop Fred, George, and Libra." Mr. Weasley said tiredly. "They are of age-"

"They're still in school."

"They're legally adults now."

"Fine. Ron-"'

"Whatever you tell Harry he'll tell me and Hermione anyway! Won't you?" He asked turning to Harry.

Harry hesitated. Oh he really was mad about the past month if he was considering saying he was going to tell Ron nothing. But of course he chose to be the good friend. "Course I will."

"Fine! Fine! Ginny- BED!"

Ginny screamed, yelled, and slammed doors the whole way to her room, which of course set of Mrs. Black. Lupin went to go shut her up.

When he returned the gave us the rundown on what's been happening. Voldy's laying low trying to build up his numbers again before telling the world that he's back. Dumbledore has been the main advertiser of his return and the Ministry is working to discredit him because Fudge feel threatened by him. We had just gotten to the interesting subject of the secret weapon thing that Voldemort was looking for when Mrs. Weasley returned.

"That's enough. I want you in bed now. All of you."

Fred really was feeling suicidal tonight. "You can't boss us-" he began.

"Watch me." She snarled.

Sensing the impending danger I clamped a hand over each of the twin's mouths.

"You've given Harry plenty of information tonight. Any more and you might as well induct him into the order."

"Why not?" Harry asked. "I want to fight-"

"No." I know what you're thinking here. But it was actually Lupin, not Mrs. Weasley.

"The Order's comprised only of overage wizards. Wizards who have left school." He added when I dropped my hands so the twins can help me in the campaign to get us in. "There are dangers involved that none of you can have an hint of an idea of. I think Molly's right Sirius, we've said enough."

Mrs. Weasley beckoned for us to follow her out of the room. We got up and followed her one by one.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"I want all of you to go straight to bed. Libra, Hermione, I expect the Ginny is already asleep. Try not to wake her up."

Behind me Fred muttered, "Asleep, yeah right. If Ginny's not lying awake waiting for them to tell her everything then I'm a flobberworm. "

"Well then I should go tell her so she can get some sleep. Night guys."

The second Hermione closed the door behind us Ginny pounced. "So what's going on?"

I changed into my pajamas and lightning speed and flopped down onto my bed. "Prepare yourself to be disappointed."

"You're not going to tell me anything? You have to."

"Actually and don't. And there's not a whole lot to tell. They gave us the most vague and generic rundown they could give. Voldemort wants to lay low so he can build his numbers up, we're trying to recruit as well, blah blah, blah blah. Things did start to get interesting at the end though. And then your mum shut it down. I really do think she's going to kill Sirius one of these days."

"Yeah, probably. What got interesting?"

"Apparently Voldy is looking for something. Something he didn't have last time."

"Some kind of weapon?"

"We don't know." Hermione said closing her book. "Whatever it is it's not like we can do anything about it. We're not in the Order and we'll be going back to Hogwarts in September."

A light-bulb went off in my head. "Well I can solve that problem for myself pretty easily."

"Libra Malfoy, you are not dropping out of school in your last year to go chasing down a dark wizard and potentially get yourself killed!"

"Hermione, you're freaking me out with all that yelling. It was a mere suggestion, a passing fancy."

"She wouldn't actually do it." Ginny said.

"Thank you."

"Not unless Fred and George did."

"You little traitor." I mock hissed as she and Hermione started laughing. They both know about my crush, and since I refuse to take any of their advice they're perfectly content to tease me. Once she regained her composure Hermione reached over and turned the lamp off. I rolled over and fell asleep.

I was rudely awakened at dawn by the twins. What actually woke me up were Ginny and Hermione's startled screams at the sound of them Apparating. When I tried to roll over and go back to sleep, they picked me up and dumped me on the floor in the hallway. "Guys why am I lying on the floor in the hallway?"

"Because if we dropped you on the floor in your room you would just crawl back in bed. Now you actually have to get up." George said.

Fred nudged me with his foot. "Now get your lazy butt up Libra."

"I'm not lazy, I'm just not a morning person."

"If you get up now you can come with us to wake up Harry and Ron." George offered.

"Fine. Let me change first." I said standing up. "And I'm never forgiving you guys for this." I said clipping George's shoulder with mine as I walked past him. I closed the door to their laughter.

Of course we had to Apparate into the room. Once we were in we caused to see if the crack had woken them up. It didn't. I looked at the twins wondering what the game plan was. George began talking as loud as he could without it being considered shouting, "Mum says get up, your breakfast is in the kitchen and then she needs you in the drawing room, there are loads more doxies than she thought and she found a nest of dead puffskeins under the sofa."

When the only response he got was both of them trying to curl into even tighter balls under the covers Fred and I moved in. In unison we ripped the covers off of them.

"Hey! No fair!" Ron protested.

"No Ronald, not fair is being dumped on the hallway floor." Fred and George started snickering. "Up now." I said heading to the door.

Fast forward half an hour we were geared up and ready to take on some doxies. Harry and Ron finally appeared and Mrs. Weasley had finished giving them instructions on safety precautions and had moved on to commenting on the state of the house.

Hermione didn't seem too pleased with the insinuation the Kreacher's work was subpar. "Kreacher's really old, he probably couldn't manage-"

Sirius interrupted her as he came into the room with a bag of dead rats. "You'd be surprised what Kreacher can manage when he wants to, Hermione." He noticed that Harry was really concerned about the bloody bag. "I was just feeding Buckbeak. I keep him upstairs in my mother's room. Anyway this writing desk, I'm pretty sure it's a boggart but we should have Mad-Eye check. Knowing my mother it could be something worse."

"Right you are Sirius." Mrs. Weasley replied.

Oh man you can cut the tension with a knife. They were playing nice but one slip up, more likely than not it would be from Sirius, and the Second Wizarding War would be taking place in this room with a stunning absence of Voldemort.

The doorbell rang. "Oh no." I groaned as the stupid portrait started screaming again.

Sirius went to go silence his mother and talk to whoever was here. Mrs. Weasley sent him to close the drawing room door and anyone could tell he was moving a slowly as possible to try to listen to what was going on.

Mrs. Weasley consulted Lockhart's book and started giving us instructions. "You lot need to be careful. Doxies bite and their teeth are poisonous. I have a bottle of antidote, but I'd rather nobody needed it."

She moved to stand in front of the curtain and motioned for us to do the same. "When I say the word start spraying. They'll come flying out at us, but it says on the sprays one good squirt will paralyze them. When they're immobilized just toss them in this bucket. Ready? Spray!"

We started spraying and after only a couple of seconds the doxies started flying out of the curtains. They were ugly little things.I knocked one out and tossed it in the bucket and turned around to find Fred sticking one is his pocket when his mother wasn't looking. "What are you doing?"

"We're going to experiment with doxy venom for the Skiving Snackboxes."

"Are you barking mad?" I hissed. "If your mum finds out she'll have your heads."

"Which is why she's not going to find out just yet." George said moving closer to be part of the conversation.

Harry inched closer as well. "What are Skiving Snackboxes?"

"Range of sweets to make you ill." George whispered keeping half an eye on his mother. "Not seriously ill, just enough to get you out of class when you feel like it. We've been developing them over the summer. They're double ended color coded chews. You eat the orange end of a Puking Pastille you throw up. As you're being rushed out to the hospital wing you take the purple half and-"

"You get restored to full health with an hour to pursue the leisure activity of your choice" Fred finished for him. "They still need a bit of work though."

I snorted. "A bit? At the point you guys can't stop puking long enough to eat the purple bit."

"You guys test them on yourselves?"

"Who else are we going to test them on without getting caught?" George asked.

"We take it in turns," Fred explained. "George did the Fainting Fancies-"

"The first batch of which is now our recipe for Puking Pastille." I interrupted.

"I tried Fever Fudge, and Libra tried Nosebleed Nougat."

"Joke shop still on then?"

"Well we haven't had a chance to get premises yet." Fred answered. "Right now we're running it as a mail order service. We put advertisements in the _Daily Prophet_ last week."

"All thank to you mate." George said nudging Harry with his shoulder. "Don't worry, Mum is still clueless. She doesn't read the _Prophet_ anymore because of all the lies about you and Dumbledore.

Harry grinned and wander off to talk to Ron and Hermione.

"Out of general curiosity when are you going to tell your mum?"

"We will wait for a day when you can stop by the shop and then we'll have her come down. She can't kill us in front of witnesses, but in case she tries we'll have you to protect us." George said.

"When did I become your security team?"

"It's part of the deal with our friendship."

"Well if it involves taking on your mum I think I'd rather back out of the whole thing."

"Too late now love, you're stuck with us now." George said with a grin.

After lunch we started in on the cabinet. Sirius helped out and the highlight of the day was the amusement of watching a silver snuffbox bite his hand. His hand grew this disgusting crusty covering, and when he wasn't looking George snagged the box from the trash pile. Hermione spent the whole time being mad because the purge of the cabinet was really taking a toll on Kreacher. It was sad that we were causing him so much distress, but the house was a mess and the stuff just had to go.

Mrs. Weasley must still have been mad about the mini rebellion last night because as soon as dessert was finished she shooed all of us upstairs and told us to stay upstairs. Ginny and Hermione joined Ron and Harry in their room and I raced the twins up the stairs to theirs. I won.

I plopped down on George's bed. "So why did you nick the Wartcap powder?"

"With a little work it has many possibilities." George said

"And as amusing as it will be when it's finished, I do not want to see anything until the kinks have been worked out."

"Speaking of kinks that need to be worked out," He said attempting to make the perfect transition into a new topic. "Have you tried talking to your brother?" And the transition was a total fail.

"You don't like him. Why would you want me to?"

"Because for some reason you can find something about that arrogant prat to love. And if you actually give a damn about him then you shouldn't just cut him out just because you've been all but disowned."

"Oh in fourth year I was told I had been officially written out of the will. Now that I'm kicked out I think I can call it officially disowned. And I'll talk to him when school starts. I don't want to risk Lucius figuring out where this place is."

"Well, now that the serious talk is out of the way," Fred said getting up. "We have all evening to work on the next round for the Skiving Snackboxes. I'm going to see if I can't sneak some provisions up here. It could be a long night. Behave while I'm gone." He left with a wink and a wicked grin.

"What the hell did he mean by that?" I asked.

"No idea." George answered.

"You'd think we were together of something." I said trying to be casual.

"Yeah, but that would just be odd at this point."

"Yeah...odd. Really odd." That sound you hear? It's my heart shattering.

Luckily I was saved by Fred running back into the room. "No snacks tonight guys. She was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Anyone who tries to get down is a dead man."

I pulled the notebook of recipes out. "Well let's get going then. We aren't going to stop until we sort this all out for the next round, and I would like to get some sleep tonight."


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The next morning I was half awake and my pillow was moving. Imagining some nutty little creature I tried sitting up and and was stopped by a weight on my waist. Now wide awake my eyes snapped open. I was still in the twin's room on George's bed. What I thought was my pillow was George's chest and the weight keeping me from sitting up was his arm. _His mum is going to have our heads._

Before the confusion could dissolve into any other emotions I heard Fred's voice. "Hey, lovebirds. You might want to get up soon otherwise Mum will be busting the door down so we get moving on cleaning up this blasted house."

George's eyes flew open. He glanced around confused. When his eyes landed on his arm he removed it quickly. "Uh, morning."

I stood up. "I'm going to go change….I'll meet you guys in the kitchen for breakfast." When they nodded I Apparated into my room. Where Ginny and Hermione were waiting for me. Of course. "Hi guys." I said trying and failing to be casual as I dug around for a clean T-shirt and pair of jeans.

"Have a great night with my brothers?" Ginny asked.

"Particularly George?" Hermione added.

"We were working out the kinks for the Skiving Snack boxes. We all must have fallen asleep in the middle of it."

Ginny smirked. "But you must have been thrilled to wake up curled up next to George."

I had not been awake long enough to argue with them. "How do you know that?"

"Fred woke up and saw you two and had to tell the rest of us."

"The rest of us. So Harry and Ron know too."

"Yes." Hermione replied.

"I don't know why you just tell him you like him." Ginny said. "You guys are already cute together. If you actually got together it would just be the icing on the cake."

"Glad you like the idea Gin, but I really don't think it'll happen."

"Why not?"

"It defies all odds that we're even friends. Your family has been the good guys since the beginning of this whole mess. My family has been one of the highest in the league of bad guys for just as long."

"You're not one of the bad guys Libra."

"I know, but I highly doubt my control freak father would stand by and let me fully be part of the good guy crowd." I said changing into blue jeans and a fitted black T-shirt, and snagging my hairbrush.

"You're brave enough to want to face certain death helping the Order, but you're not brave enough to tell my brother you've been in love with him for like four years."

I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and headed for the door. "Well certain death is no where near as complicated and messy as love is. See you in the drawing room ladies."

The drawing room was wrapped up pretty quickly and we moved on to a sitting room next door. There were no psychotic creatures, but there was plenty of random crap for us to sort through. Things were pretty quiet until Mrs. Weasley left to start preparing lunch. The moment the door closed behind her Fred and Ron started tossing the jokes around.

"So Fred, when do you think the wedding is?"

"I don't know Ron, but I hope her father can put his Death Eater plans on hold for the big day."

I whipped a chair cushion and their direction and managed to catch them both in the head. "One: I thought we had rules established. Try not to constantly talk crap about my brother and never ever mention my father. Two, shut up."

Ron took a half a step back looking a bit concerned, but Fred was used to my short fuse and occasional viciousness. Not the least bit fazed he asked, "When are you guys just going to admit it that you're totally in love so that you can finally get together, I can help George come up with a brilliant way to propose that will outshine any other proposal in history, and we can the craziest wildest wedding reception the world has ever seen."

Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny started out nodding in agreement, but by the end were staring at him in amazement with the rest of us. Fred who had been waiting for words or perhaps shouts of agreement looked around confused. "What?"

"Fred, you have put way too much thought into this. Calm down." I said.

"How on earth can I calm down when it is so painfully obvious that two people are so dang perfect for each other and the two people in question are the only ones in the world that can't see it?"

I was floundering trying to think of a response, when Mrs Weasley, bless her soul, saved me from the conversation. "Lunchtime!"

I dropped the dusting rag I was holding a bolted for the door almost knocking over the pile of junk destined for the bin. As I helped Mrs. Weasley move everything to the table I realized that George had been very silent throughout my whole little discussion with his brother. Why?


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

While we were eating we heard the front door open. We all stood up and were about to begin a mad dash to the door when Harry came running into the kitchen. "I'm cleared!"

Ron jumped onto his chair and punched the air. "I knew it! You always get away with stuff!"

Hermione looked like she was one step away from tears. "They were bound to clear you. There was no case against you, none at all."

"Everyone seems quite relieved, though, considering they all knew I'd get off." Harry said smiling.

Fred, George, and Ginny started dancing around chanting, " He got off, he got off, he got off.."

I raised my voice so I could be heard over them. "Come on Harry. Don't stomp all over our reason to celebrate." I was then dragged into the dance by Ginny.

"That's enough. Settle down!" Mr. Weasley's attempt at laying down the law was undermined by the smile on his face. "Listen Sirius, Lucius Malfoy was at the Ministry-"

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Sirius was also concerned. "What?"

After telling Ginny and the twins to be quiet Mr Weasley gave out some details. "We saw him talking to Fudge on level nine and then they went up to Fudge's office together. Dumbledore ought to know."

"Absolutely. We'll tell him right away."

"Well I better get going, there's a vomiting toilet in Bethnal Green waiting for me. Molly, I'll be late, I'm covering for Tonks, but Kingsley might be dropping in for dinner-"

Anything further he had to say was interrupted by even more chanting from Ginny and the twins.

Mr Weasley left, and Mrs. Weasley went right back into gear. "That's enough - Fred-George-Ginny! Harry dear, come and sit down, have some lunch, you hardly ate breakfast."

Ron and Hermione sat down and started talking to Harry. Mrs. Weasley went to get a plate of chicken for Harry and when she returned to find Ginny and the twins still singing was absolutely furious. "SHUT UP!"

They finally got the message and immediately dropped into their chairs. Taking advantage of the silence I asked Harry, "What did my father say when you saw him?"

Harry swallowed the bit of chicken. "Just a bunch of insults and holier than thou crap. Nothing about you if that's what you're really asking."

"Which is odd," Sirius said from across the table. "Because I'm sure it's pretty obvious where you would go once he kicked you out."

"Well if he really doesn't give a damn, which he hasn't for years, then it really isn't that odd."

"Then why would you feel the need to ask if you knew the answer?"

"Maybe I'm concerned about my brother."

"Still don't understand that." Ron commented.

"He's not all bad Ron. I admit he can be a bit of a git, but he's not like that all the time. Our dad's gotten so far into his head and is now working and twisting him until he's as warped as he is. Besides Now that Voldy's back Malfoy Manor is prime real estate for bad guy headquarters. I don't want him to get pulled in when there's a chance I can get him on our side. "

"Now that you mention that angle it is unfortunate that you got kicked out." Sirius said.

I set my fork down a little too hard. "And why is that? So I can be your little spy? I'm so sorry that events in my life have made this operation so much more difficult. Do you want me to go beg my way back into his good graces? Because even if I would allow myself to fall that low he wouldn't buy it."

He didn't respond.

I pushed my chair back. "I'm going to go see if I can scrub some of the depressing grit off the walls in that sitting room we were working on earlier."

They gave me an hour to cool off. When Fred and George came in I was scrubbing the walls halfheartedly, having spent all my energy in the first twenty minutes of frenzied cleaning. "You ok Lee Lee?" George asked grabbing a sponge and joining me.

They only call me that when they know I'm upset. "I'm fine."

"Yeah right." Fred said as he started attacking stains on the next wall. "That little blow up at lunch was nothing at all, just a little friendly banter."

"He grates on my nerves sometimes. All the back and forth. One minute he's telling us we can't be part of the Order or have any clue what's going on, and the next he suggesting that it would be useful if I could have stayed in that house and been a spy."

When I was done venting George asked, "Feel better?"

I tilted my head. "Actually, yes."

"Brilliant." Fred said "Now that you're in a better mood we can have some fun."

I raised an eyebrow. "And that would involve?"

"This!" They said in unison as they threw the wet sponges at me.

My face broke into a huge grin. "You two are dead men walking." I said as I scooped up a handful of water to launch at them.

The water war lasted a good five minutes before Mrs. Weasley came in too see what all the noise was. And even though it seemed like she inches away from murdering us the smile never left my face.

The last day of summer break we finally got our booklists. Scanning it over the only thing that seemed out of place was _Defensive Magical Theory_ by Wilbert Slinkhard. "Guys does this title also make you think we aren't doing a lot lot of actual spellwork in Defense Against the Dark Arts this year?"

"It seems possible, but it might just be your paranoid mind at work Libra." Fred said as he fiddled with a set of Extendable Ears that had gone haywire.

"I'm not paranoid."

"Either way," George broke in trying to avoid an argument. "Let's go see what Ron and Harry are thinking."

"I'm game." I said setting aside the recipe for Fainting Fancies that still needed a little more tweaking.

We ended up Apparating right beside Harry. I smirked when I noticed that he had gotten so used to it he didn't even flinch anymore. I then took a moment to silently mourn the days when it used to startle him so much he would fall out of his chair.

Fred spoke casually as if we'd been in the room the whole time. "We were wondering who assigned the Slinkhard book."

George picked up. "Because it means Dumbledore's found a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."

"And about time too."

Harry jumped off the chair he was standing on. "What d'you mean?"

"We overheard on the Extendable Ears a few weeks back that Dumbledore was having real trouble finding anyone to take the job this year." I explained.

"Not surprising when you look at what's happened to the last four, is it?" George observed.

"One sacked, one dead, one's memory removed, and one locked in a trunk for nine months." harry said counting them off. "Yeah. I see what you mean."

Fred turned his attention to his younger brother. "What's up with you Ron?"

Ron was staring at his letter, mouth slightly open. Over all looking very stunned.

Fred looked over his shoulder. "What's the matter?"

His mouth fell open. "Prefect?" he said staring at the parchment. Prefect?"

George took the envelope from Ron's hand and turned it over dumping the prefect badge into his hand.

Fred snatched the letter and held it up to the light. "There's been a mistake. No one in their right mind would make Ron a prefect."

They both turned to Harry.

"We thought you were a cert!" Poor Fred sounded completely and utterly betrayed.

"We thought Dumbledore was bound to pick you." George said.

"Winning the Triwizard and everything."

George directed his attention to his twin. "I suppose all the mad stuff must have counted against him."

"Yeah." Fred said slowly letting the rationalization sink in. "Yeah, you've caused too much trouble mate. Well, at least one of you's got their priorities straight."

He gave Ron a scathing look and commenced the digs that I've been patiently waiting for since the revelation. "Prefect...ickle Ron the prefect…"

"Oh Mum's going to be revolting." George groaned shoving the badge back at Ron as if it might contaminate him.

"Boys," I broke in. "Be nice. Give the poor kid some time to adjust before you start teasing him. He's still in shock."

Ron had not spoken this entire time. He took the badge and held it out to Harry as if asking for a confirmation that it was real. Harry took it, and at that exact moment Hermione burst through the door.

"Did you- did you get-?"

I flinched when she saw the badge in Harry's hand and let out a shriek.

"I knew it!" She brandished her letter causing me to duck to avoid getting hit in the face. "Me too, Harry, me too!"

"No," Harry said giving the badge back to Ron. "It's Ron, not me."

"What?"

"Ron's prefect, not me." Harry repeated.

"Ron?" Her jaw dropped. "Are you sure? I mean-"

Her faced turned red as she took in Ron's defiant expression.

"It's my name on the letter."

Poor girl looked so confused. "I...well..wow! Well, done Ron! That's really-"

"Unexpected." George supplied.

"No." She said blushing even harder. "No, it's not..Ron's done loads of..he's really.."

"Well," I said tossing an arm over Ron's shoulder. "Looks like Harry and I are the only one's who truly believe in you my friend."

Mrs. Weasley came in with a pile of robes. "Ginny said the booklists came in. If you give them to me I'll take them over to Diagon Alley this afternoon and get your book while you're packing. Ron, I'll have to get you more pajamas, these are at least six inches too short. I can't believe how fast you're growing..what color would you like?"

George smirked. "Get him red and gold to match his badge."

"Match his what?" she asked absently folding socks.

"His badge." Fred said. "His lovely shiny new prefect's badge."

It took a few seconds for it to settle in. "His..but...Ron you're not..?"

Ron held up the badge.

"She's going to have an aneurysm." I whispered to George.

"I have two Sickles that Ron dies of embarrassment first."

"I'm not taking a losing bet." I said as Mrs. Weasley let out a shriek.

"I don't believe it! I don't believe it! Oh Ron, how wonderful! A prefect that's everyone in the family!"

"What are Fred and I, next door neighbors?" George said indignantly as she pushed him aside to hug Ron.

I put an arm around each of the twins. "It's ok boys. We can be the oddballs of our families together."

"Given the context of your story Libra, that was really dark and really depressing." Fred said.

Mrs Weasley hadn't heard anything we said because she was still freaking out. "Wait until you father hears! Ron, I'm so proud of you, what wonderful news, you could end up Head Boy just like Bill and Percy, it's the first step! Oh, what a thing to happen in the middle of all this worry, I'm just thrilled, of Ronnie-"

At this the twins started making fake retching noises. I was half tempted to join in. This whole mushy thing was beginning to be a bit much.

Ron was just as uncomfortable with the outburst as the rest of us. "Mum..don't...Mum get a grip.." He said as he tried to squirm out of her bearhug.

She let go and asked, "Well, what will it be? We gave Percy an owl, but you've already got one of course."

Ron looked completely stunned. "W-what do you mean?"

"You've got to have a reward for this! how about a nice new set of dress robes?"

"We've already bought him some." Fred said looking like he regretted doing so.

I elbowed him in the ribs. "Play nice. Once she's gone he'll recover and you can dish out as much as you want."

Mrs. Weasley acted like neither one of us were talking. "Or a new cauldron, Charlie's old one's rusting through, or a new rat, you always like Scabbers-"

"Mum, can I have a new broom?"

Her face fell a little.

"Not a really good one. Just a new one for a change.."

After a moment of hesitation she smiled. "Of course you can. Well I'd better get going if I've got a broom to buy too. I'll see you all later. And don't forget to pack your trunks." She walked out of the room going on and on about Ron being prefect under her breath.

As soon as the door shut behind her Fred and George exchanged a look. Recognizing it I dropped my arms and moved to sit next to Hermione. Fred started the assault. "You don't mind if we don't kiss you, do you Ron?" He asked with fake anxiety.

"We could curtsy if you like." George added.

Ron scowled. "Oh shut up."

He'd taken the bait. An evil grin spread across Fred's face. "Or what? Going to put us in detention?"

"I'd love to see him try." George said.

Hermione got pissed. "He could if you don't watch out!"

Ron already knew they were on a roll. "Drop it, Hermione."

"Libra, George, we're going to have to watch our step. With these two on the case.."

"Yeah, looks like our lawbreaking days are finally over." George said linking arms with me and dragging me over to do the same with his twin. Together we Disapparated back to their room.

"Guys how long before you stop going out of your way to give Ron hell for this?"

"I'd saw halfway through the second week of school." Fred said after a moment of thought.

I raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess. Hermione made the sentence longer."

"Indeed she did." George said. "Now we have less than twenty-four hours to make these things suitable for selling to or testing on the other students. Let's get back to it."

A couple of hours in and I heard Mrs. Weasley come back via the Extendable Ears we set up every time we work on stuff for the shop. The last thing we wanted was for her to come in unexpectedly and shut the whole operation down after we've made so much progress.

"Sounds like it's time to go downstairs." I said gathering up the papers and hiding them under my mattress.

"Brilliant because I am starving." George said.

"Yeah," Fred agreed.

Just to mix things up we walked down the stairs like normal people.

We walked in the door a step behind Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny. The first thing I saw was a bright red banner congratulating Ron and Hermione on becoming prefects. "I thought we'd have a little party, not a sit down dinner." She explained as we all came in. "Your father and Bill are on their way, Ron. I've sent them both owls and they're thrilled."

Fred rolled his eyes.

"Don't be so melodramatic." I whispered to him as I handed him and George butterbeers.

Tonk, Lupin, Sirius, Kingsley, and Mad-Eye showed up and once a toast was made to the new Gryffindor prefects, the attention drifted to other things. Mad-Eye confirmed that the mystery occupant of the drawing room writing desk was indeed a boggart. Tonks, Lupin, and Sirius were telling stories of their days in school. Ron was going on and on about his new broom, and Hermione had taken advantage of Lupin's break in storytelling to give a speech on elf rights. Mrs. Weasley and Bill were arguing about the current length of his hair.

I sat off to the side and quietly observed. Things like this never happened at my house. Any gathering at the Malfoy residence involved black tie attire and dry boring conversation that always led back to the superiority of pure bloods. There never was an amusing exchange of goofing off at never was any lively banter. My mom had never had a fairly good-natured argument with either me or Draco. That's why I loved being with these people. They were a family, they were hellraisers, they were rebels, they were jokers.

George pulled me out of my thoughts. "Libra, we need your assistance in price negotiations."

"What's Mundungus got for us?" I asked following him to a corner of the room.

"Venomous Tentacula seeds."

"Whatcha reckon Libra?" Fred asked.

I glanced at the handful of pods George held out. These things were a major pain to get ahold off. But it wasn't much, especially considering we would be experimenting with how much we were going to need to use. "Ten Galleons."

"Wiv all the trouble I went to get 'em? I'm not taking a Knut under twenty."

"You're falling a little short on your jokes Dung. The bag of knarl quills for six Sickles was way funnier. Ten is as high as we're going." I said assuming what the twins referred to as my "Malfoy pose," standing as tall as I could and clearing my face of all emotion. Overall the look comes up pretty dang regal and intimidating.

Mundungus however didn't seem to impressed.

Harry had come over to us to escape getting involved in the hair arguement. "You guys need to be careful."

"Why?" Fred asked. "Mum's busy cooing over Prefect Ron, we're okay."

"But Moody could have his eye on you." Harry whispered.

That seemed to freak Mundungus out. "Good point, that. All right, ten it is, if you'll take 'em quick."

"Cheers Harry!" Fred said as the exchange was made. "We better get these upstairs."

We took off. Walking like normal people, not wanting to draw attention until we had transported the goods to their room.


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I woke up to Ginny and Hermione shaking me awake. "Libra, get up or we're going to miss the train." Hermione hissed when she noticed that I cracked my eyes open a bit.

I groaned but rolled out of bed anyway. I changed into the jeans and button up plaid shirt and rolled my sleeves up. Still in a zombie state I brushed my hair and asked, "Why are we walking to the station again? That's got to be dangerous, especially for Harry. We're out in the open, vulnerable to attack."

"The only other way would be to get the Ministry to loan us cars and Fudge doesn't trust Dad much these days."

I got my stuff downstairs and turned to go back up to help one of the others so we could move a little faster and not give Mrs. Weasley an aneurysm today. I ended up having to dive out of the way as two trunks flew down the stairs knocking Ginny over in the process. Once it was clear I skidded over to her. "You good, Gin?"

She nodded and pushed herself up. "Good practice for Quidditch."

I grinned and held out a hand to pull her up. "Keep taking falls with this attitude and you'll make the team for sure."

Mrs. Weasley wasn't as chill. She flipped out on the twins. "YOU COULD HAVE DONE HER SOME SERIOUS INJURY YOU IDIOTS-" I winced at that. They wouldn't let it show, but that was going to be playing over in their heads for quite a while.

All other thoughts were drowned out by Mrs. Black adding her two cents in. "FILTHY HALF-BREEDS BESMIRCHING THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS-"

Eventually everyone made it downstairs and was ready to go. The twins were still looking a little deflated from knocking Ginny down two flights of stairs and then getting yelled at, put the gave me small smiles as they moved to stand next to me.

"Harry, you're to come with me and Tonks." Mrs. Weasley said. "Leave your owl and trunk Alastor's going to deal with the luggage. Oh for heaven's sake Sirius, Dumbledore said no!"

A huge black dog had appeared next to Harry and was following him out the door.

"Oh fine on your own head be it then." She sighed shutting the door behind them.

The rest of us waited for Mad-Eye and Lupin to sort the final details. All the while Mrs. Black was still screaming. _It is too early for all of this._ I whipped around and started yelling at the painting. "WE GET IT. WE'RE TERRIBLE PEOPLE AND ARE DESECRATING YOUR HOUSE. NOW SHUT UP!"

It actually worked. Everyone stared at me, and I stared at the portrait. I was just letting off some steam. I did not imagine in the slightest that it would actually work.

"Libra," George asked slowly. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know. But I wish I had figured out whatever it was earlier."

"All right you lot," Lupin said walking into the room. "You'll be walking with me. Alastor will be taking all the luggage over."

We left the house and traveled through the street to King's Cross. The twins made fun of my mild fascination with the Muggle-filled streets. I'm no where near as intrigued as their father is. I just find it so interesting how they all ignore each other so completely and manage to not run into each other.

When we got to Platform 9 ¾ Harry, Tonks, Mrs. Weasley, and Mad-Eye were already there. "No trouble?" Moody asked.

"Nothing." Lupin said.

"I'll still be reporting Sturgis. He's getting as unreliable as Mundungus."

"Well," Lupin said shaking hands with all of us. "Look after yourselves."

"It was great meeting you all." Tonks said hugging Ginny, Hermione, and me. "I'll expect we'll see you soon."

I nodded. "You still agree to try to hook me up with an Auror job like you promised?"

She smiled. "As soon as you finish at Hogwarts drop by. We'll start your training right away."

"Then I will most definitely be seeing you soon."

We got on the train and looked out the window to give some final waves.

Sirius ran along the platform following the train. Once he was out of sight Hermione said, "He shouldn't have come with us."

"Oh lighten up," Ron said. "He hasn't seen daylight for months, poor bloke."

Fred clapped his hands together. "Well, can't stand around here chatting all day, We've got business to discuss with Lee. See you later."

We headed down the corridor and made our way through the cars until we found the compartment where he was sitting. I entered first. "Lee Jordan how have you been?" I said hugging him.

"Not bad Lee Malfoy, not bad." He replied. "Though from what I hear you have had quite the summer."

Fred interrupted us. "Before we start gossiping about the events of the summer we need to get something out of the way first."

"Right you are." Lee said.

We all sat down and caught Lee up on the products we've developed for the shop so far. Once the story was finished he nodded. "Not too bad guys. I wouldn't mind getting ahold of another round of fake wands. They would be gold to mess with the first years."

"How many do you want?" I asked, knowing he already knew the price.

"There's no friends and family discount?"

George shook his head. "Not until we actually have a shop."

"But," Fred said. "We could make an exception if you were to help us out."

"How?"

George and I had picked up on what Fred was up to and ended up answering in unison. "Help us test the Skiving Snackboxes."

We all paused a moment to be horrified by what just happened.

Lee broke the momentary silence. "It weird enough when they do it. When you do it with one of them Libra, it's just plain creepy."

I nodded and looked at George. "We are never doing that again."

"Agreed."

Shifting our attention back the the issue at hand we turned back to Lee.

He sighed. "What else are friends for? Besides it can't be that bad."

Any further jokes and shenanigans were interrupted by none other than my brother. We all looked up when he opened the compartment door. I was really hoping to run into him at a moment where we could have an actual conversation, but I can roll with the punches. "Can I help you?"

"Just came to see how you were surviving on your own." Sounds like a totally jerk thing to say, but I knew it was him asking if I was okay without losing face in front of his cronies. He and I get along just fine on all except the subject of my father, the need to care about what other people think, and the whole pureblood thing. But I really think I'm starting to sway him on the pureblood thing.

"You know me. Just chillin' like a villain. Loving life and causing mayhem. Speaking of which," I said noting the prefect badge on his robes. "Watch yourself in the Slytherin prefect bathroom. I may or may not have rigged something up in there at the end of last year in preparation for this year."

"Watch yourself Libra, I'll give you detention."

I stood up. "Not bloody likely."

Surprised by me daring to challenge his authority he took half a step back. "Or what?"

"I'll go to Dumbledore. I'm sure he would take that little badge back if he knew the power behind it is being used unjustly. Now walk away."

He did, but not before clipping my shoulder to cover up that he was dropping a piece of paper into my hand.

The boys had noticed the contact and were up in arms. "What the hell was that all about?" Lee asked.

"Chill guys." I said sitting down and holding up the paper. "He just didn't want them to see him give me this."

"What's it say?" Fred asked.

"Give me a sec to read it and maybe I'll tell you." I said scanning over the page.

 _Libra,_

 _I want to talk. Tonight at eleven in the Library._

 _Draco_

"You're going to go aren't you?" George asked.

"He's my brother."

"He's part of the reason you got kicked out." Fred said.

I rolled my eyes. "No he's the reason that process got expedited. My father was looking for any excuse and he took the first one he could get. I want to give him a chance."

"He betrayed you." Lee and Fred burst out in unison.

We all took another moment to be horrified. Once again Lee addressed it first. "Libra, we need to stop hanging out with them. This is too freaky."

George redirected the conversation back to me. "Libra, what if you can't save him?"

I shook my head. "I have to try."

"But what if you can't?" He asked gently.

I paused to think. I truly believe that if I tried hard enough I could save Draco from the fate my father was setting up for him. I could keep him from becoming my father. I refused to consider any other outcome. I know there's a sliver of good in my brother, and if I just gave up on him my father would destroy it. "I will."

George sighed, giving up. "So Lee, what mischief did you get up to this summer?"

"I thought you would never asked." He replied with a sly grin. "You guys are going to love this story."


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The first thing I noticed when we stepped into the Great Hall was the absence of Hagrid. "He couldn't have just left."

"Don't you remember what we heard over the Ears a couple of weeks ago. Dumbledore sent him on on some mission. he must still be doing that." George said in a low voice.

We sat down with the other seventh years and scanned the staff table looking for the new Defense Against The Dark Arts teacher. The only new face I could find was a short, toad like woman who a strong love for the color pink. "Please don't tell me she's it." I groaned.

"I'm afraid that it looks that way." Lee said.

The woman than turned away from Dumbledore and I got a look at her face. "Oh no." I laid my head on the table hoping she didn't see me.

"What?' George asked.

"That my friends is Dolores Umbridge. She works for the Ministry and has been to many a work party at Malfoy Manor. She's really into pureblood extremism."

Any questions they had were put aside as Professor McGonagall led the first years in to be sorted. The hat had a very odd song this year. Not much about the attributes of the houses, mainly warnings against be split and turning against each other. Eerie, yet oddly comforting. The Minister may be turning a blind eye, but at least the hat knew something was up.

After the sorting Dumbledore stepped up to make his usual super short pre-dinner speech. " To our newcomers welcome! To our old hands welcome back! There is a time for speeches and this is not it. Tuck in!"

The food appeared and I immediately began loading my plate with roast potatoes, steak and kidney pie, and vegetables."

"You know you're not going to have any room for dessert." George said pouring me some pumpkin juice.

I gave him a challenging look.

He raised his hands in defense. "I know it's you favorite part of every feast. Just looking out for you."

I smiled a took a bite of potatoes.

Eventually the everyone finished eating and the noise crept up as people began to talk again. I on the other hand was slipping into the first stage of a food coma. I laid my head on my arms. "He really should start with these speeches. I just want to go to bed already."

Fred rolled his eyes. "Then you would complain the whole time that you're starving."

I shrugged. "Even better point. He should just post it on a wall for us to read at our leisure."

Dumbledore stood up and everyone went silent. "Well, now that we are all digesting that magnificent feast, I ask a few moments of your attention for the usual start of term notices. First years ought to know that the forest in the grounds is strictly out of bounds to students-and a few of our older students ought to know by now too." I leaned back in my seat to point a look at Harry, Ron and, Hermione who looked rather amused.

"Mr. Filch has asked me for what he says is the four hundred and sixty- second time to remind you all that magic is not permitted in the corridors between classes, nor are a number of other things all of which can be found in the extensive list now fastened to his office door.

"I plan on getting more things added to that this year." I whispered, causing the twins and Lee to silently break down in laughter.

"We have to changes in staffing this year. Professor Grubbly-Plank will be taking over Care of Magical Creatures, and Professor Umbridge our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Tryouts for the House Quidditch teams will take place on the-"

He stopped talking as it became apparent the Umbridge wanted to make a speech.

"Thank you Headmaster," she said. "For those kind words of welcome."

"Gag me." I whispered, which set the boys off again.

"Well it is lovely to be back at Hogwarts, I must say! And to see such happy little faces looking back at me."

Fred looked around the room. "Where?"

"I am very much looking forward to getting to know you all, and I'm sure that we'll be very good friends.

"That's likely." The twins said in unison looking very unconvinced.

She then continued with a speech about how important the education of young wizards was to the Ministry and "progress for progress's sake must be discouraged." Translation: the Ministry is concerned about Dumbledore's influence on our young impressionable minds and is will now be interfering at Hogwarts.

As soon as we were released to go to our dormitories I made a break for the door.

"You're in a awful big hurry." Fred observed as the boys tried to keep up with me.

"Believe it or not boys I'm doing this for you. If you want to get that testing poster hung up we need to do it while Hermione is distracted with helping the first years."

Once my words sank in Fred broke into a full on sprint with Lee trailing after him.

"Now who's in a big hurry?" I called after them with a smirk.

"I suppose we should go after them to make sure they don't kill anyone with their mad dash." George said.

"If they do it's their own fault, let them deal with Dumbledore if they survive what Hermione would do to them." I replied, wanting to see how far this joke can run.

"Those are some harsh words Miss. Malfoy." He said. Wait, was that tone joking or flirting?

I stood a little straighter. "Well I am a Malfoy. It comes with the name."

His face got really serious. "No it doesn't. You are nothing like them."

Startled I just stared at him. _Where did that come from?_

"Are you two just going to stand there or are you going to give me the password so I can let you in?" The Fat Lady asked. I jumped slightly. I didn't notice that we had made it to the portrait.

"Sorry, um, yeah, _Mimbulus Mimbletonia._ "

She nodded and the portrait swung back to reveal the entrance to the common room. "You know you two are really cute together." She said as we walked through.

"We're not together." I told her.

She just chuckled as the painting recovered the entrance.

We got to the common room and saw no sign of Fred and Lee. "Where the hell did they go?"

"Probably having trouble locating the poster. I'll go help them." George said heading to the stairs for the boys dormitories.

I nodded. "I'm going to go change."

I took the stairs to the seventh year girls dormitory two at a time. As soon as I entered Angelina tackled me in a hug. "Libra!"

I tried to push her off, but I was laughing too hard. "Hi Angelina. How was your summer?" I said once I was able to recover enough to breathe.

"Brilliant. But we can talk about that later. You won't believe what's happened?"

"What?'

She shook her head. "Guess. I'll give you a hint. It's Quidditch related.

So she got the captain's spot. Now we'll have pep talks that don't go on for over half an hour. This is going to be the best season ever. I decided to mess with her a bit though. "Wood turned down his big chance to go pro and has come back to be the permanent Gryffindor coach?"

"Libra If you're going to purposefully make a wrong guess at least make it something less frightening. And really, as if Wood would turn that down."

I walked over to my trunk and dug out some sweats and a tank top. "So when are the tryouts for our new Keeper, Captain?"

"Friday at five. I want everyone there so we can see how the new person will mesh with the rest of the team."

"I'll be there." I said changing quickly and headed for the stairs.

"Tell Fred and George." She called after me.

"I think I'll only tell George, then you'll have an excuse to talk to Fred." Said with a wink before running down the stairs before she could throw something at me. She's had a crush on Fred for about as long as I've had a crush on George.

I was still moving pretty fast at the end and crashed into someone, knocking both of us to ground. And of course that someone was George

"Where's the fire Libra?" Lee asked trying to hide his laughter at what just happened.

"It's in their hearts." Fred said with a wicked grin.

I quickly rolled off George, stood up, and held out a hand to help him up. "Sorry George." I turned to the other two. "I know where you guys sleep at night and the stairs to your dormitories won't knock me down at the top. Do you really want to annoy me?"

They immediately stopped laughing. Lee took half a step back. "What would you do?"

"I don't know yet."

"Doesn't matter Lee. She wouldn't do it." Fred said. He didn't look sure of himself though.

"I will. I've done it before. Do you guys not remember third year?"

Fred changed the subject. "So the poster. Do think it'll be effective?"

I looked at the sign that was now posted on the bulletin board. "Definitely."

At that exact moment Hermione came through the common room. We all moved so that we were blocking the poster from her view. It had to stay up at least until tomorrow morning so we could get people to test the Snackboxes on.

I glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. "Gotta go guys. See you in the morning."

"I still can't believe you're going to talk to him." Lee said as I walked away.

"He's my brother."

Fast forward half an hour and Draco still wasn't at the library. I glanced at the clock and put the book I had been reading back on the shelf. I reached out to open the door and sneak back to the common room it opened itself. Draco slipped in and shut the door. "I'm sorry. It was hard to sneak out."

I sat with my back to the wall next to the door. "So glad you could make the time for me. I know how busy you are climbing the ladder and playing power games."

"If you don't want to talk I can just leave."

"You're the one who asked me here. What do you want?"

He sighed and sat down next to me. "I'm sorry. I didn't think he was going to kick you out. Otherwise I wouldn't have said anything to him."

"First, what did you expect him to do? Second, what was there to tell him? It's not like I'm going to end up with George."

"Oh please. The way you two are always flirting with each other. You'll end up together before Christmas."

"I really don't think it's going to work out that way."

"Why not?"

"The odds are against us. He's always been part of the good guys, and I will never be able to cut my ties with the bad guys."

"We're not-"

"Can it. You know that what Voldemort did back then was wrong. And now that he's back Dad will go right back to him."

He went silent. When he finally spoke it addressed my first question. "I just thought he would break you guys up. Not drive you to him."

"We aren't dating. And what would it be to you if we were? He's not a bad guy."

"He doesn't like me. None of them do. I thought if you had a reason to stay with them you would leave me behind."

"I wouldn't do that."

"You seemed to leave easily enough at the beginning of summer. Didn't hear from you the whole break. I sent owls to the Burrow and they all came back without a reply."

"I wasn't at the Burrow. That's why I didn't write. I couldn't risk him finding out where we were."

"You're smart. You could have found a way."

"Also I think Sirius would have flipped if I did try."

"So you spent your summer with an escaped murderer. Lovely."

"He's not a murderer."

"It still would have been nice to hear from you."

"How bad was he?"

"Not too long after you left Death Eaters started setting up in the Manor. Voldemort stopped by a few times."

"No surprise there."

"I think he knows that you've always been trying to get me to see things your way. He acts like it's a no brainer that I'll join then, but at the same time it feels like he's trying to recruit me."

"Well you're here now. Safe. And all you have to do is say the word, and you can come with me. You don't have to go back there."

"Yes I do."

"No you don't."

"If I don't go home for Christmas he'll know I'm with you, and he will try to find me and that will bring all of them down on wherever your secret hideout is."

"Is this really you being noble or is this him in your head drawing you down the same path he followed?"

"I don't know." He said softly.

We fell into silence. After what seemed like ages, but according to the clock was only three minutes he spoke again. "We should go."

We stood up and I hugged him. "Love you, bro."

Taken by surprise it took a second for him to hug me back. "Love you too."

I let go and opened the door. "You don't have to be him, and you don't have to be me. Fall in the middle if you like. But please don't let him control you and make you join them if you really don't want to do it." And I left.

I entered the common room in full stealth mode and was almost to the stairs when George nearly gave me a heart attack. "Took you long enough to get back."

I turned around and saw him stretched out on the couch. "We kind of had a lot to talk about."

He sat up and made room for me on the couch. I sat down. "What's bugging you?" He asked.

"What you said on the train. What if I can't save him?'

He put an arm over my shoulders. "If it turns out that way it wouldn't be your fault. You would have tried everything you could think of to help him."

Sweet gesture, but I knew he was just saying it to try to make me feel better. "You don't even like him. Why do you care?"

"Because you care."

I looked up at him confused.

He leaned forward and I knew he was going to kiss me. I was thrilled with this turn of events, but also completely terrified. I turned away and looked down at my hands.

"What's wrong?" He sounded hurt.

"It defies everything that we're friends. I don't want to risk it with more."

"I thought you liked defying everyone."

"Well if it sets you up to get hurt then I don't. My father may not want me in the family, but he would still do something because that's the kind of control freak he is."

"Maybe being away from you will hurt me more than whatever he would do."

I couldn't think of anything to say.

He stood up. "I'll let you think. But I'm not giving up. I'll wear you down eventually." He kissed my cheek and walked away.

"George?"

"Yeah."

"Why now?"

"Fred's constant insisting the you like me too finally sank in. Figured I had to take the risk."

He walked up the stairs.

I sat on the couch playing over what had just happened. The guy I've been in love with since fourth year just told me he felt the same way, tried to kiss me, and I had turned it all down because I was scared of what my father, who had kicked me out of the family and out of his life, would do. "I am so stupid." With that statement I went upstairs. Tomorrow I'll talk to Angelina, Hermione, and Ginny, and hopefully they'll know how to fix this mess.


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I didn't have to do much to locate the girls in the morning. I woke up to find all three of them waiting not so patiently for me to wake up. I tried to play it nonchalant. "Morning."

Angelina threw my robes at me. "Get dressed while you give us details otherwise we'll be late."

I sighed and got up. "So I talked to Draco last night."

She gave me a death look. "I highly doubt any conversation with your brother would be the reason you came in here last night muttering about making a huge mess and calling yourself stupid."

"Well…"

"Just spill it already."

"I ran into George in the common room."

"I knew it!" Ginny shouted triumphantly.

"Gin, did you miss the part about me making a mess of things? We talked for a while and then he might have tried to kiss me."

They all flipped out. Angelina was the only one who's screams actually sounded like coherent words. "It's about time!"

"Guys, I backed out."

They all stopped. "Libra you've been wanting this to happen for years. Why would you back out just when things are going the way they should?" Ginny asked.

"Because I'm descended from the bad guys and your family has always been the good guys. I don't want to risk our technically not possible friendship for more when it's going to get destroyed."

"That's not going to happen." Hermione told me with her usual "I know everything" confidence. "You're scared that your father is going to do something to hurt him. You're forgetting two things:something you said my first year here and something you told me earlier this summer. The only way anyone is going to hurt someone you love is over your dead body, and the reason your father kicked you out for good is because he heard about your feelings for George. Whether he becomes your boyfriend or stays your best friend your father will still go after him to hurt you. George can take care of himself, but it if comes down to it he'll be safer with you beside him."

Dressed and ready to go down to breakfast I sat back down on my bed. "So what do I do?"

Ginny grabbed my hand and started dragging me to the stairs. "You're going to go down there and talk to my brother and work this out." She gave me a little push when I hesitated at the top. "I can't wait until I can start calling you my sister."

I made the walk down the stairs a leisurely stroll. When I got to the bottom I found the twins and Lee waiting for. As soon as Fred and Lee saw me they took off. Wanting to ease the awkward that was building with every step I took towards George I asked, "What's with them?"

"I didn't quite catch all the the excuse. Just heard something about wanting to leave us alone."

"Look George-"

"I remember what you said. You don't want to tempt fate by continuing to defy the odds. I can wait until you see how ridiculous that sounds. In the meantime we can still be friends right?"

Hermione's words replayed in my head. George can take care of himself, but if it comes down to it he'll be safer with you beside him. Before I could change my mind and go back to being paranoid about getting him killed I took the leap. I kissed him. He was momentarily stunned but after a couple seconds he kissed me back. That moment quickly rose to the top of the list of the best moments of my life. After a couple more seconds I pulled back. "To hell with the odds. I need to stop being paranoid."

"Ah so she admits she's paranoid." He said with a grin.

"Shut up."

"That was easier than I thought it would be."

"Thank Hermione. Let's go get breakfast."

He took my hand and together we walked to the Great Hall.

When we sat down at the Gryffindor table Fred and Lee broke out into applause. "Finally." Lee said passing me the bacon.

While I was loading up my plate with the wonderful delights that is breakfast food Angelina came over and sat next to me. She gave me questioning look and I nodded. She grinned like the freaking Chesire cat. I gave her a look and tilted my head towards Fred. When she looked confused I mouthed "Quidditch."

She turned to Fred. "So I've been made Quidditch Captain and on Friday we're going to have tryouts for the new Keeper and I want the whole team to be there."

"Sounds good I'll be there." He said with a smile. I was thoroughly impressed he even understood what she was saying she had talked so fast.

We ended conversation in favor of enjoying breakfast. By the time I had demolished the last piece of bacon McGonagall was moving around the table handing out schedules. I scanned over mine. Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms. I wasn't surprised, they're what I needed to take to become an Auror, but I still internally groaned at Defense against the Dark Arts. It was my favorite class, but I knew Umbridge was going to find a way to destroy that for me. I've only actually talked to the woman twice and both times she was insufferable.

Fred snapped his fingers in my face to get my attention. He and George were already standing. "Looks like your three favorite fifth years got their schedules. Let's give them hell shall we?"

We got up and moved to where Harry, Hermione, and Ron were sitting. Ron was complaining about his schedule. "Binns, Snape, Trelawney, and that Umbridge woman all in one day! I hope Fred, George, and Libra hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted.."

Today Fred was going for the dramatic instead of quick wit. "Do mine ears deceive me?" He squeezed in next to Harry. "Hogwarts prefects surely don't want to skive off lessons?"

"Look at what we've got today. That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."

Fred took the schedule and scanned over it. "Fair point little bro. You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."

Ron looked a little weary. "Why is it cheap?"

"Because you'll keep bleeding until you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet." George said casually.

"Well we think we do." Fred corrected. "But Libra keeps putting off testing it again.

"Guys the blood loss put me out of commision for a day. You mum nearly killed you, and I nearly died of boredom. I need to plan it around my schedule in case this antidote doesn't work. I said I'd try it Friday night."

As soon as the words left my mouth I knew Fred was going to make a crack about it. "Interesting Libra. Your idea of a fun Friday night is hanging out with your boyfriend, his brother, and the potential of bleeding out."

I glanced at george who took the cue and put his arm around me. I looked back at his twin. "What can I say Freddie? I'm a savage."

Ron gave us the weirdest look. "I think I'll take the lessons. And congratulations you two on finally seeing the light."

Hermione gave me a small smile before putting on her figurative prefect hat. "And speaking of your skiving snackboxes, you can't advertise for testers on the Gryffindor notice board."

"Warned you." I whispered.

They pretended not to hear me. "Says who?" George asked.

"Says me. And Ron."

"Leave me out of it." Ron did not look the least bit happy with the idea of him telling the twins what to do being implied.

Fred stated buttering a crumpet. "You'll be singing a different tune soon enough Hermione." He took a bite. "You're starting your fifth year. You'll be begging us for a Snackbox before long."

"ANd why would starting fifth year mean I want a Skiving Snackbox?

"Fifth year's O.W.L. year." George replied.

"So?"

Fred looked way too smug when as he replied. "So you've got your exams coming up, haven't you? They'll be keeping your noses to the grindstone so hard the'll be rubbed raw."

"Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up on O.W.L.s." George said with a little too much enthusiasm. "Tears and tantrums...Patricia Stimpson kept coming over faint…"

"Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d'you remember." Fred said looking very nostalgic.

I shook my head. "You put Bulbadox powder in his pajamas."

"Oh yeah. It's hard to keep track sometimes. Thought I haven't forgotten how Libra nearly killed three different people during Quidditch that year."

Harry opened his mouth to defend me. I cut him off. "It may be true that the only way I stayed sane was blowing of steam on the pitch."

"Anyway," George said. "It's a nightmare of a year, the fifth. If you care about exam results anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our spirits up somehow."

Ron tried to rain on their parade. "Yeah… you got, what was it, three O.W.L.s each?""

"Yep." Fred said with no concern at all. "But we feel our futures lie outside the world of academic achievement"

"We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back this year, now that we've got-"

I elbowed him in the ribs.

"-now that we've got our O.W.L.s." He said scrambling for something to cover up his slip. "I mean do we really need N.E.W.T.s? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."

"But this year will not be wasted." Fred said. "We're going to be doing a bit of market research. Figure of what students want from a joke shop, evaluate the results, and produce the products to fit the demand."

Hermione was skeptical. "Where are you going to get the gold to start a joke shop? You're going to need ingredients and materials and premises too."

Fred stood up. "Ask us no questions and we shall tell you no lies. Now if you'll excuse us, we might be able to sell a few Extendable Ears before Herbology and George will probably want to walk his girlfriend to Potions.

Once we were out the door we stopped. "Guys she almost figured you out."

"Well she didn't. Now George get her to Potions and try not to take too long getting to Herbology." Fred winked before heading off, stopping halfway down the hall to try to sell Extendable Ears to a group of second years.

George offered his arm dramatically. "Shall we?"

I smiled and pretended to curtsey. "We shall." And we headed off to Snape's classroom.

He tried to make small talk. "So Angelina directed the Quidditch announcement at Fred, but not you or me."

"She told me last night and wanted me to tell you two. I told her I would only tell you so she would have an excuse to talk to Fred. Given the way things played out last night I kinda forgot to tell you."

We weighed the pros and cons on our team's future with her as captain instead of Wood. By the time we got to my class we had decided the pep talk will be the same in quality because even though they would be shorter they would lack Wood's near obsessive passion and enthusiasm.

"Well here we are." He said.

"Yep."

I rolled my eyes. "Go to class, before you're late."

"I've got plenty of time."

"Your brother needs your help building relations with your customers. Go."

He kissed me again. "See you later." He said before heading to the Greenhouse.

I walked into the classroom and noted that I was the first student there. Snape who had quite obviously seen everything wasted no time in trying to ruin my day. "Miss Malfoy. How disappointed your father would be. Surely you could do better than a Weasley."

"Morning Snape I thought you would be a little less against it given recent events. And if my father wanted to prevent this he should have kept me under his roof so he could have better control over my life. Not that it would have worked anyway."

"I thought I wouldn't be seeing you in this class."

"Why? I kind of need it and I was the best in class last year...Ohhhhhh." I said the realization dawned on me. He thought I was going to drop out to be in the Order. "Well I did consider that, but I figured if I'm going to go out there and kick ass I would need to have as many tricks up my sleeve as possible."

Any further conversation was interrupted by the rest of the class filing in. I sat down in my usual seat near the front and took out my book.

Nothing truly astonishing happened in gave a long speech about what he expected out of us on the N.E.W.T.s in June and left us with barely enough time to brew the potion he assigned. I was greeted by both of the twins as I walked out of class. "Hey guys. How was class?"

"Dreadfully boring." Fred said as we started walking to Defense Against the Dark Arts. "How was Potions?"

"The usual. I don't know why I expected Snape to be a little more friendly."

"Prickly as usual was he?" Fred asked pausing to make a sale to a Ravenclaw second year.

Once the money and Extendable Ears had been exchanged we continued on. "Yep. And now I get to follow it up with Umbridge."

George put an arm over my shoulders. "At least we're all together so we can keep each other amused."

Lee joined us. "And that would now involve Fred and I cracking jokes about your love life while you try t o brush it off and change the subject and Libra tries to refrain from murdering us."

I just shook my head as the three of them burst out laughing. We entered Umbridge's classroom and were met with a look of disapproval. We immediately shut up and I raised an eyebrow. Sensing my question she said, "I do not like disruptions in my classroom."

We exchanged uneasy glances and sat down. Once everyone was in the room she began by playing at friendly and relatable. "Good morning."

She got a few muttered responses in return. Unsatisfied she said, "Now that won't do. I would like you to reply with 'Good morning Professor Umbridge." Shall we try again? Good morning class."

"Good morning Professor Umbridge." I only mouthed the words. Everyone else sounded unenthused.

"Welcome to your final year of Defense Against the Dark Arts. By the end of this year you'll be well prepared to take and pass your N.E.W.T. examination. It has been noted that your teaching of this subject has been fragmented, but not to worry. This year you'll be following a carefully structured Ministry approved curriculum."

I leaned closer to George. "Translation: Boring and not at all useful."

Umbridge didn't hear me. "Do you all have a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilber Slinkhard?"

Once again there was minimal answer to her question.

"When I ask you a question I should like you to reply with 'Yes Professor Umbridge" or 'No Professor Umbridge.' Now let's try that again. Do you all have a copy of Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard?"

This time I did speak. With as much fake sweetness as I could muster I joined the chorus of, "Yes, Professor Umbridge."

"Good. I would like you to now turn to page five and begin reading chapter one."

I flipped my book open dreading what stale boring text I would find. At the sight of the title of the chapter my hand shot up. She ignored me for a good five minutes before I proved to be too much of a distraction for the rest of the class. "Yes Miss.."

It took all my willpower not to roll my eyes. She knew exactly who I was. "Malfoy. I was wondering why we're studying 'Basics For Beginners", this is a seventh year N.E.W.T level class."

"Which is why we'll be moving more quickly than the other classes. the Ministry feels it is best you get a quick review of Defensive Magical theory before continuing on with your studies."

"Theory. That word keeps getting thrown around and seems to imply that we will not be doing any actual spellwork."

"Once you understand the theory well enough you'll be able to do the spells with no trouble at all."

Fred spoke up. "So we will have no chance to practice spells at all?"

"Your hand isn't up Mr.-"

"Weasley." He said, half raising his hand for good measure.

Lee raised his hand.

Umbridge looked annoyed to say the least. "Yes, Mr.-"

"Jordan. I wanted to know the answer to Fred's question."

"Mr. Jordan, do you believe you will be attacked in my classroom?"

"No?" He said sounding uncertain.

"Then there is no reason for you to use defensive magic in my classroom."

My hand went up again. When she looked at me I asked, "So you expect to pass our N.E.W.T.s when the first time we'll be doing some of these spells is in the practical portion of the exam itself?"

"If you know the theory well enough you should have no trouble applying it in a carefully controlled setting. Now please get back to your reading."

"Is this how you were taught this subject?" I asked standing up to keep her from ignoring me again.

"Miss Malfoy do you want a detention?"

I opened my mouth to reply and George dragged me back down to my seat. "Slow down Libra. Don't go getting detention on the first day of school. Besides there's no reasoning with her." He whispered.

I sighed and returned my attention to my book. At least this was the last class for the day.

After dinner we took up residence in a corner of the common room to do our first round of testing on Hogwarts students. So far the only ones who have been brave enough to try our products out have been first years. We were hoping for a bit more diversity, but we would take what we could get. Fred who had long ago been named our PR guy stood up. "Thanks for agreeing to help us out. We'll pay you half of what we promised in advance and the rest after we're done. It's nothing too hard, just a bit of product sampling. I assure everything is completely safe." He explained handing them each a sample of Fainting Fancy after I paid them the first half of what we promised.

They were almost immediately out like lights. The twins started taking notes on observing each unconscious kid.

Hermione came marching up to us. "That's enough!" I took a step back startled by the venom in her voice.

The twins only looked mildly surprised. George went for the casual approach. "Yeah, you're right. This dosage looks strong enough doesn't it?

"I told you this morning, you can't test your rubbish on students!"

Fred wasn't as interested in keeping his cool. "We're paying them!"

"I don't care, it could be dangerous!"

"Rubbish." Fred said.

"What he means," I said moving to stand between the twins. "Is that they're perfectly safe because anything we give to them has already been tested on all three of us."

Lee spoke up as he put the purple ends on their mouths. "Calm down, Hermione, they're fine!"

George gestured to them. "Look, they're coming round now." He crouched down next to a small girl who was closest to him. "Feel alright?" The way he asked melted my soul, he's so nice to young kids.

"I-I think so." She said.

"Excellent!" Fred said writing a note, only to be interrupted as Hermione snatched it and the bag a Fainting Fancies.

"It is NOT excellent!"

"Of course it is. They're still alive aren't they?"

I casually stood on Fred's foot and mouthed "Cool it" when he turned his glare to me.

"You can't do this. What if you make one of them really ill?"

"You heard what LIbra said. We tested everything on ourselves first. We're just testing to see if everyone reacts the same.-"

She cut him off. "If you keep doing this I'm going to-"

"What?" he interrupted. "Give us detention?" he asked with a tone that dared her to try.

George smirked. "Make us do lines?"

I was not about to join in on daring Hermione to do her worst. I had no interest of seeing her on the warpath. Most of the other people in the room had broken into laughter at the showdown. Hermione stood as tall as she could and narrowed her eyes. Over all she looked pretty damn threatening.

"No," her voice quivering with anger. "but I will write to you mother."

"Oh shit." I whispered. That was a low blow.

George took a step back. "You wouldn't."

"Oh yes I would. I can't stop you from eating the stupid things yourselves, but you're not giving them to first years." She shoved the clipboard and bag back into Fred's arms and stormed back to Harry and Ron.

Sensing that they would be frozen in shock for a while I paid the kids the rest of their money and shooed them away. I turned to Lee. "How should we approach this?"

"We get them to sit down and you do most of the talking."

We ushered them to a group of chairs in the corner of the room. "So how long are you guys going to be out like this? Because I can't start talking this out until you guys are with it enough to listen."

"She wouldn't really do that would she?" Fred asked fussing with the bag anxiously.

"I don't know guys. But either way I think we should lay low with testing on students. Keep it off her radar and carefully select people who won't let it slip."

"Why would she even say she would do something like that?" George asked.

"She was mad enough that you were challenging her authority, then people started laughing. She had to win so she went with the blow that guaranteed it. "

"Why don't any of them believe we can do it? They just think we're idiots."

I abandoned my chair to sit on the floor in front of them. "Hey, don't let them get in your head. You can do this. You've already done so much. The only reason they think you're idiots is you spend all your time and energy on this shop. Classes aren't your thing, but business and product development are. Someday soon you'll have the shop and start raking in the Galleons and they'll see."

Lee cleared his throat. "I can't think of anything more helpful than that emotional speech, so I'm just going to go before I ruin it."

Fred ended up following him.

By that time the rest of the common room had cleared out as well. George stood up and pulled me over to the sofa. I sat down next to him and laid my head on his chest as he put his arm around me. We sat there like that for a long time. Finally he spoke. "How did we get lucky enough to be your friends?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're a Malfoy. You could have been friends with people with a lot more than us."

"Who the richer Gryffindors who were afraid of me because of my last name? The Slytherins, most of whom I grew up with, who cut me out when I ended up breaking family tradition. I don't have the temperament to be around Hufflepuffs all the time, and I'm a touch more smartass than smart. I'd rather hang out with the two jokers who were nice to me from minute one on the train than any of them. Honestly I'm wondering how I got lucky enough you didn't turn on me like the rest of them."

"Please. After you tricked Fred into eating a vomit flavored bean we knew that you were a keeper."

I smiled. "Feel better yet?"

"Not quite. I think we need to sit here longer."

"Oh really how much longer?"

"Eternity?"

I groaned. "Smooth, but a little cheesy."

"So that's a no."

I sat up. "Sorry, I still have half an essay to write before I can sleep." I gave him a peck on the lips and started to walk away. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to kiss me again. I grinned and pushed him back. "I have to go."

He let me go. "Good night Libra." He said before heading to the boys' stairs

"Goodnight George."


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The next morning at breakfast I was minding my own business trying to eat my bacon and eggs and wake up when Angelina sat right next to me a promptly began freaking out. "He is so dead!"

Startled I dropped my fork. "Who? And what did he do?"

She blinked. Completely stunned that I had no clue what was going on. "Harry. He managed to land detention already. The whole rest of the week."

"I understand where this is going. But please don't kill him. He's the best Seeker in the whole school."

"You were working just fine before he joined the team." She muttered darkly turning her butter knife through her fingers.

I took the potential weapon from her. "I like being a Chaser better. Though I will admit it would be fun to out do my brother as Seeking."

"You said you knew Umbridge a bit. Is there any hope in reasoning with her?"

I shook my head. "There's no way she'll fold. She's punishing Harry for being stubborn, keeping him from something he wants to do, and more people than him are being inconvinced by the whole thing. From what I know about her, this is exactly her cup of tea."

"Can't he think about how stuff like this will affect the team before he opens his mouth?"

"You're starting to sound like Wood now."

"Which is funny," Fred commented sitting down across from us with George. "I thought if anyone would go crazy drill sergeant in his absence it would be you."

"And why would that be?"

He noticed the warning in my voice and ignored it. "That right there. You have this commanding presence and tone that tells people if they don't do what you say they will most likely die. Combine that with your charming short temper and you have the makings for the next Oliver Wood."

"Fred, call me the team's next Oliver Wood in that sense and I will go crazy drill sergeant on your ass."

"Duly noted. Now on to more important things. How are we going to run the next round of tests?"

"We watch everyone, not just first years. Find people who we can trust, and then somehow convince them to agree with it. From now on we should probably give full disclosure on what they're testing. That way if Hermione does find out we can defend it with they came in voluntarily knowing exactly what was going to happen. But right now we need to get moving if we want to get to Transfiguration on time."

We had a free period after Transfiguration, which was a lifesaver because after spending the whole class trying to Conjure a pebble my mind was fried.

"I still think McGonagall should have let me off. I Conjured something." Fred complained.

I rolled my eyes. "There's a bit of a difference between a pebble and a flaming coal."

"I did more than was asked for. You got a pile of gravel let you off."

"I ended up getting a very delicate pebble because I assure you it was whole until I was startled by the desk next to me catching fire. I thought Finnigan had snuck into our class."

Our joking was stopped by the voice of one of the most annoying people on the planet. "For someone who's allegedly so smart I don't understand how you can still be making such stupid decisions."

I sighed and turned around. "Parkinson,if you want my autograph you can just ask for it. No need to beat around the bush by trying to make fun of me."

Pansy Parkinson. In Draco and Harry's year and has a major crush on my brother. She'll do anything to impress him. Including make fun of the sister he pretends to hate so he can maintain his pristine reputation. The whole thing is quite sad really. She follows him around like a puppy most days.

"Why did you even come back? It must have been hard to get everything you needed when you've been cut off for good."

Wow her voice carries. Everyone in the hall stopped dead and stared at me. Lovely, now they all knew I've been tossed out. Not that I really wanted to stay in that house much longer, but it's still a blow to my pride. "It's amazing how many Galleons you can fit into the empty spaces of a trunk. And how much you can pawn random, unimportant objects off for."

"It would make sense that you would go to them. You're not that different."

"And what exactly does that mean?" George asked taking a step forward.

I put a hand on his arm and shook my head. "My fight." I mouthed.

"But what I don't get is why they were willing to take you? Surely the parents were against it."

"Actually their parents love me. Surprise, surprise there are people in this world who put more value on character than heritage. Now you have thirty seconds to walk away. If you don't I'm most likely going to do something very stupid that will hurt you, but I will have no problem living with it or the consequences."

She opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted by Adrian Pucey. "Pansy just leave. You're being ridiculous."

Stunned she did as the older Slytherin said and left.

"Thanks Adrian, but I had everything under control."

"I wasn't doing it for you. I had no doubts that you were serious about your threat. Would rather that Gryffindors didn't beat up members of my house."

Adrian was in my year and although he was one of the many to turn his back on me after I was sorted into Gryffindor, he was one of the few who didn't go out of his way to be horrible. He was a Chaser for the Slytherin team and he didn't cheat or play dirty like the rest of the team. "Well thanks, I guess. See you on the pitch."

"Are you referring to the time in the near future when we're going to beat Gryffindor in a landslide?" Our grudging respect for each other allows us to have a little banter.

"You wish. I'd like to promise that you're getting knocked off your broom for that comment, but I don't want to destroy your sense of hope like that."

He shook his head and headed down the hall in the opposite direction we were going.

As we continued Fred spoke, "Would you have really beat her up?"

Angelina spoke before I could. "Of course she wouldn't. That would land her detention and she would certainly not risk her weekend plans to teach a loudmouth fifth year a lesson."

I was actually one more snide comment away from throwing my books at her. But with the glare Angelina was giving me I was not about to admit that. "Totally. I just would have messed with her head. Maybe sneak some Puking Pastille in her bag for her to unwittingly eat later. That said she's definitely waking up to find spiders in her bed."

"How do you plan on accomplishing that?" Fred asked as George gave the Fat Lady the password.

"Do you doubt my skills?" I asked making a beeline for the arm chair I claimed as my own back in second year.

"No," Fred said quickly.

George picked up the end of the defense to save his brother. "You're terrified of spiders and there's the whole issue of getting into the Slytherin common room."

"Boys, do not underestimate my ability to get my hands on information. I know the password. I'll catch the spiders in the dungeons before going in. Once I'm in all I need to do is crack open the lid of the jar and then book it."

"Evil plots aside," Angelina said pulling out her Potions book. "I need Libra's help with this essay."


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Friday's Quidditch tryouts finally came much to the relief of everyone on the team because it meant Angelina could finally stop threatening us with death if we somehow missed them.

"Not a bad turnout." I observed as I examined the group of prospects that had gathered on the pitch.

Fred elbowed George. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"Indeed I do." George said with a smirk.

"What?" I asked scanning the group for a face that would cause them to react so strongly. Then I spotted it. "Oh, never mind."

"Did either one of you know that Ron was planning on trying out for the team?" Fred asked.

"Not a clue." George responded.

"You can't really blame him." I said. "He's probably freaking out enough as it is. You guys throwing snark every chance you get."

"Fair enough." Fred said as Angelina called for everyone's attention.

Tryouts went well. She started them out simple with just having the Chasers try to get the Quaffle in the Hoops. Then she got Fred and George in to try to distract them with Bludgers. There were a few who were absolute crap. The only one I actually kept on eye on was Ron. He wasn't perfect, but he could take a hit and wasn't giving up. A little work and he might not be half-bad.

After she had put them through all the drill Angelina called the team to the far side of the pitch. "So what do you guys think?"

"Frobisher and Hooper are pretty good. And Weasley could be promising with some work." Katie Bell said.

Maybe I'm a tad biased, but I wanted Ron on the team. "Frobisher might not be a good idea. She was talking to me earlier this week about practice scheduling and mentioned that if this clashed with Charm Club she'd put Charms first. Add that to all the other clubs she's in it might be a bit difficult for her to fit us into her schedule."

Angeling nodded. "Anyone else?"

Fred cleared his throat. "Due to the temperament of some of our players," He looked directly at me. "I feel unless Hooper has a major attitude change before the next practice, he's going to end up having a nervous breakdown from all the hell the players in question will give him."

I sighed. "I know I am the player in question, and I can honestly say I will give him hell, because he needs to chill out and not whine so much."

Angelina sighed. "The question is can will Ron survive the hell the three of you will give him?"

"Ron is capable of giving just as good as he gets." I assured her.

She nodded. "Sounds like Ron might just be it. Anyone against that?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Good. Next practice is at two tomorrow. Let's go welcome the newest member of the team."

In celebration of Gryffindor finding a new Keeper in Ron Weasley we had a bit of a party in the Common Room. I gave up my usual chair to take over a couch with George.

I was on my second butterbeer when Harry came back from detention. Ron spilled his butterbeer all over himself running over to Harry. Bless that kid's soul, he was so excited.

As they approached the first thing I caught was, "-where's Hermione gone?"

Fred took another swig from his butterbeer and pointed to one of the chairs by the fire. "She's there."

Ron looked a little disappointed. "Well, she said she was pleased when I told her."

I felt George tense. "Let her sleep."

I glanced at the group of first years we recently did another round of tests on. They still looked like they had recent nosebleeds. Note to self next time we test Nosebleed Nougat bring tissues. And lots of them.

Everyone drifted off to other conversations leaving me with the twins and Lee. I finished my butterbeer and looked around for another.

Lee knew what I was up to. "Fresh out Libra. Sorry."

"Just as well." Fred teased. "You my friend have a problem. Going to end up like the house elf that used to work for Crouch."

"The alcohol content is next to nothing Fred. It might be enough to get a house elf wasted, but if I wanted to I would have to spend the better part of the day continually downing them."

"Do you have to destroy my jokes with logic every time?"

I feigned surprise. "I thought that was why we're such good friends."

Sensing a lull in the conversation, I kissed George on the cheek and stood up. "Night boys. I've got homework, and I do need some sleep to function."

"Homework is for Sunday night," George protested. "And tomorrow is Saturday, the day designed for sleeping in."

"I want to get all of it out of the way so I don't have to worry about it."

He sighed. "Fine, but one more?" He asked.

I rolled my eyes and kissed him.

Lee and Fred started being smartasses.

I pulled back and grabbed the nearest cushion to launch at them. Once it hit them I gave George another kiss on the cheek and headed up the stairs.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

So maybe the boys were right and I should have left at least some of my homework for Sunday. I was up until nearly three because I was a stubborn idiot who wanted to get it all done at once. Consequently I slept straight through breakfast and it was just about time for lunch when Angelina was able to get me to regain consciousness.

"About time! I was beginning to wonder if you had died."

I stretched. "Why? What time is it?'

"Time for lunch. You have quite literally slept the entire morning away."

Startled I jumped out of bed and grabbed some clothes. Seeing that she was amused by my mad dash I said, "I was up til 3 so technically I didn't sleep the whole morning away."

"Whatever. As long as you're functional for practice today."

I slid my shoes on and pushed her out the door. "I will be once I eat. I am starving."

We obviously sat with Fred, George, and Lee. Being the obnoxious dorks they are they immediately started to pretend to fuss over me as soon as I sat down.

Lee took the lead. "Oh, Libra thank goodness!" He said it loud enough to make the Slytherins behind him turn around.

"We thought for sure you had died." Fred continued helping me to my seat.

Not quite in the mood to put up with other humans, but knowing they will shut up if I play their game I dramatically sat down and laid my head on my arms. "I am surrounded by idiots."

"Hey now," George said nudging me so I could move and he could fill my plate. "Normally you're up before the rest of the school. When you sleep til noon instead we have a right to worry."

I nodded and picked up my fork. "Duly noted. No more doing homework until three in the morning. Now I really do love you all, but no more talking until I get some food in my system."

"Guys Ron is going to be nervous about his first day. So try not to go after him the minute he walks in the door." I said leaning against the wall of the changing room.

Fred shook his head. "Not bloody likely Libra. This is going to be too much fun."

I rolled my eyes.

"Libra you know we know where the line is. We'll get very close to it, but will back off before we end up stomping all over it." George assure me before pulling his Quidditch robes over his head.

"I believe that was something you learned from me."

George fixed his hair as he replied. "Actually we perfected it. You stomp all over the line and are able to predict when to back off so you don't get caught. We get close so we don't have to worry about getting caught, because technically we aren't doing anything wrong."

"As much fun as that sounds, I like my way better."

Any further conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Harry and Ron.

"Alright Ron?" George asked with a wink.

"Yeah." Ron replied. Poor kid looked like he was about to faint.

"Ready to show us all up, Ickle Prefect?" Fred asked as he finished putting on his robes.

"Shut up." Ron said before putting on his robes.

Once he finished changing I leaned on arm on his shoulder. "Ron the only way things can go wrong is if you keep acting like this. Chill out and loosen up."

He didn't look convinced, but before I could say more Angelina walked in. "Let's get to it. Alicia, Fred if you could get the ball crate for us. Oh, and there are a couple of people out there watching but I want you to just ignore them alright?"

Her voice hinted at who the spectators might be. When we stepped out onto the pitch it was confirmed. "Angelina, are you sure you know how to count?"

Confused she just looked at me.

'The entire Slytherin team and then some other random people is more than 'a couple of people.'"

"Just get in the sky Libra."

I kicked off without further comment. She was stressing herself out about being the new captain. Now she had the stress of Slytherin watching us. She was going to be a little snappy, and unless I wanted to deal with that mood all night I would need to behave.

"What's that Weasley's riding?" I heard Draco yell. "Why would anyone put a Flying Charm on a moldy old log like that?" Crabbe, Goyle, and Parkinson burst into laughter. Loud obnoxious laughter.

I cut to the side and as casually as I could swooped them, My foot nearly hit Pansy in the head.

Angelina was not impressed. "Libra! Over here now!"

I flew back over to the group. "It had to be done."

"No it didn't." She turned her attention back to the entire team. "Okay everyone, we're going to warm up with some passes, the whole team please-" She was interrupted by Pansy making a crack about her hair. She gave no signs that it bothered her and soldiered on. "Spread out then and let's see what we can do."

She started us out with passing the Quaffle around, I caught it from George and sent it over to Harry. Harry passed it to Ron. Ron dropped it.

While the Slytherins laughed at him he flew down to retrieve it. He nearly pulled fell off when he pulled out out off the dive. Once he was back on our level I could see he was blushing, a lot. Fred and George shared a look, and then looked at me. I shook my head. They didn't say a word.

"Pass it on Ron." Angelina called.

Once he did I flew up close to him. "Shake it off. We all drop it sometimes." I said as I went past him catching a pass from George and sending it over to Fred.

Ron missed another pass and Angelina started to lose patience. Third time around he caught and got so excited he threw the Quaffle too hard and hit Katie in the face. Fred snuck her a bit of the cure end of a Nosebleed Nougat to stop the bleeding.

We got a Bludger and the Snitch out and started getting to work. Chaser passes were on point, Harry was focused, and no one was getting knocked over so Fred and George must have been doing their job. But Ron was struggling.

Angelina called for us to stop. "Ron you're not covering your middle post."

"Oh...sorry."

"You keep shifting around while you're watching the Chasers. Either stay in front of the middle or circle. Don't stay off to one side. That's how you let the last three goals in."

"Sorry."

"And Katie, can't you do something about that nosebleed?"

"It's actually getting worse."

Fred checked his pockets. And then looked up horrified.

We started again to stop almost immediately. Katie was still bleeding and was getting way to pale for comfort.

"She needs to hospital wing." Angelina said.

"We'll take her."Fred said. "She -er-might have swallowed a Blood Blisterpod by mistake-"

He and George took off with Katie supported between them.

"There's no point in continuing with no Beaters and down a Chaser. Come one let's go get changed.

I changed at warp speed hoping to be done in time to write a note and get back outside before Draco left. Thankfully what I had to say was short and to the point because the only paper I had was a scrap torn off my last Potions essay. We need to talk tonight. Library.

When I got outside Draco and crew were still hanging around waiting to see if they can harass Ron further.

"Leave." I said.

"Who's going to make us?" Pansy asked. "You?"

"No, but I can make you regret deciding not to leave." I tilted my head. "Have a good sleep last night? The spiders must be out of control what with your dorms being in the dungeons."

"I knew that was you-"

"Yes and unless you want something worse you'll leave. Now. You all have done enough emotional damage for one day."

I pushed through them making sure I ran into Draco so I could drop the note.

Fast forward to later that night and I was alone in the library waiting to see if Draco would even show up. Fred and Lee were completely against it. They don't see any point in trying to save him from the path he's being dragged down. George only grudgingly agreed. I was reading ahead for Defense Against the Dark Arts so I could be well armed to out do Umbridge in class on Monday.

The clock just chimed eleven when the door opened. My brother sat down next to me. "What do you want?"

I closed my book. "Well to start you could be less of a dick to Ron."

"If the only reason you asked me here was to tell me what to do then I'll just go." He said starting to stand up.

"No. I wanted to catch up. I just thought I would get the overprotective of my friends bit out of the way. And seriously, it's not that hard to shut up when you don't have anything good to say about someone. Every day I do it with that Pansy girl who follows you around."

"So I should just put spiders in his bed."

"No. You are to learn from my mistakes and become the better person for it. So behave. And if Ron reports such a thing I will know who did it, and they will find your body floating in the Black Lake."

"Have I ever told you what a wonderful sister you are?"

"I spent an entire summer with the Weasleys and my entire school career with Fred and George. No sibling relationship is complete until there are death threats."

He actually cracked a smile.

"Bam. That's what I was going for. You never smile anymore. You just alternate between angry, disgusted, and what I can only describe as Lucius."

"Well without you home there wasn't much good over the summer."

"Dude, he acted like I was never in the same room as him, and the only way we could properly hang out was if he wasn't home and we kept well out of sight of that one house elf."

"He filtered himself when you were around because he figured you would report everything to the Weasleys. And when you weren't around there was a fifty-fifty chance he would be working on drawing me in or complaining about you. When you left there was only working on getting me into the family business."

"Do you even want it? To be on that side?"

"Why does there even have to sides?"

I just looked at him.

"Okay, maybe I understand why sides have formed. I just want us all to get along. To be a family again, like back back before your first year."

"As lovely as that sounds there's no way that's going to happen."

"I don't know what to do."

"At some point you're going to have to pick a side. And the sooner the better. The longer you stay in the middle the more it will eat away at your sanity."

He glanced at the clock. "I need to go." He stood up.

I stood as well and grabbed him in a hug before he could walk away. This time he hugged me back immediately. "Love you bro."

"Love you too." With one final small smile he left.

I finished the section in my textbook and headed back to my own dorm.


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The next day we woke up to learn Umbridge had been given the power to decide which teachers would be allowed to continue working at Hogwarts. I was livid. First she destroys my favorite class, now she's going to tear apart all the other classes as well? After letting my rant for about an hour George stepped in to calm me down.

The rest of Sunday was spent working with the twins on perfecting the Skiving Snackboxes. Nothing too eventful, apart from the fact that Hermione nearly caught us testing out Fainting Fancies again. Luckily I had decided to stand guard outside the common room and was able to keep her distracted while the boys woke all the first years up and got them out of there.

Monday dawned and I was ready to wage war. If Umbridge was going to be horrible enough to make me dread going to my favorite class then something had to be done. And if there was one thing I know how to do it was raise some hell. But first I had to get to DADA and that was after lunch.

Normally I love Charms. Professor Flitwick is friendly and entertaining enough to keep people from nodding off during the lessons. Of course this class had to be ruined by the most evil presence of Umbridge. To his credit Flitwick was not bothered in the least by her presence and acted like everything was normal.

When we got to lunch the Golden Trio were already there discussing grades already. I was more interested in plotting Umbridge's downfall so I only half-paid attention. I fully tuned in when I heard George say, "I've always thought Fred and I should've gotten an E in everything because we exceeded expectation just by turning up for the exams."

We all burst out laughing, except for Hermione. There was more talk about grades for a while until I couldn't take it anymore. "As lovely as this conversation is, can we please talk about something else before I fall asleep?"

Fred changed the subject immediately. "You lot had an inspected lesson yet?"

"No. Have you?" Hermione asked.

"Just, now before lunch." George answered.

"Charms." I elaborated.

Harry and Hermione were way too interested. "What was it like?"

Fred shrugged. "Not that bad. She just lurked in the corner taking notes. You know what Flitwick's like, treated her like a guest, didn't seem to bother him at all. She asked Alicia a few questions, but that was it."

"I can't see Flitwick getting marked down." George said. "He usually gets everyone through their exams all right..

As we got up to head to classes George said to Harry, "Be a good boy and keep your temper with Umbridge today. Angelina'll do her nut if you miss anymore Quidditch practices."

Harry glanced at me. "Shouldn't you be saying that to your girlfriend as well? Seeing how you guys are heading there next and she has an even shorter fuse than me."

"Fair point Harry. Libra behave."

I shook my head. "I'll play nice if she plays nice."

George shook his head. "Scratch that Harry. Get detention. It will save you from witnessing Angelina's wrath when Libra get detention for mouthing off, and Fred and I get detention for holding her back from actually attacking Umbridge."

Three minutes into class and I already wanted to die. After talking to Hermione I found that we were not moving any faster through Slinkhard's book than the other classes. In fact we were much slower. We were maybe halfway through chapter one, and the fifth-years had just finished it. Umbridge was droning on and on about the theory behind defensive magic, and after contemplating stabbing myself in the eye with my quill I decided now was the time to take action. I raised my hand.

"Yes Miss Malfoy?"

"I was just wondering, when we're going to get to applying the theory?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean."

"Well you said that if we knew the theory and how to apply it we won't need to worry about the fact that we aren't practicing spells in class. We've spent a week continually going over the theory. When are we going to talk about how it can be applied?"

"When we're done going over everything with the theory. Now-"

"Why are we taking longer to get through things than the younger classes. The fifth years will be starting chapter two today. You said we would be moving faster."

"Once we get deeper we will. You all have spent the most time learning things differently, I want to make sure you understand what the Ministry is expecting out of young wizards now."

I tried to hold back. I really did. But the words just flew out of my mouth. "I would think they would want young wizards capable of performing a variety of spells that can accomplish whatever work tasks are necessary for the jobs they get, and spells to defend themselves and others. Not a group of brainwashed youngsters who cling only to theory and are unable to react properly to a dangerous situation."

The entire room went silent. Umbridge got this look on her face. Like everyone else in the room she knew I just fucked up and she was going to enjoy making me pay for it. "And what on earth are do you mean by brainwashed?"

"What you're doing now. You aren't teaching us anything. This whole lecture was another twenty ways to present the topic of last lecture, which was another ten in itself. I am very sad to say I have the notes to prove it."

Now she looked downright gleeful. She gave me a chance to fix the mess I was making and I didn't take it. "Miss Malfoy I will see you in my office at five o'clock for the first of a week's worth of detentions."

George clamped a hand over my mouth before I could tell her what she could do with her detentions.

"If you say anymore she'll make it longer. And Angelina will have your head."

That shut me up. I was going to miss a week of Quidditch practice. Angelina nearly killed Harry for missing tryouts. I was going to be smothered in my sleep for sure.

Five rolled around and I was only mildly surprised to find Harry about to enter Umbridge's office as well. "You too?"

He nodded.

"Angelina is going to kill us."

"I know."

Umbridge looked way too happy when the two of us entered. "Ah yes. Please sit."

We did.

She set out some paper in front of us and handed the two of us some very intimidating looking quills. Great lines. Hope she likes doodles of cats, owls, and brooms.

"Mr. Potter, the same as last time. Miss Malfoy for you I would like 'I must remember my roots.'"

I clenched the quill harder. "How many times?" I asked through gritted teeth.

"As long as it takes to sink in."

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Harry giving me the saddest look ever. Love the kid, but he was going to catch hell for giving me pity, no matter how much I probably needed it right now. "If you want lines, I'm going to need some ink."

"You won't need any with that quill."

My eyes widened. The bitch gave us blood quills. I glanced at Harry's left just faintly were marks that looked like letters. Too faint to see what they say, but I'll find out tonight and if we keep getting in trouble our sentences will be well on the way to becoming permanent scars. Fuuuuuuuuck.

I pressed my lips together as if that alone would keep me from saying anything else stupid, and started writing. I must remember my roots. Once I finished the sentence my right hand started words faintly appeared on my skin.

Hours later she finally let us go. I wrapped my hand up and stormed to the common room. Harry struggling to keep up. The Fat Lady saw us coming and didn't even ask for the password. "What's got you on the warpath Libra, dear?" She asked as she swung open for us.

"Mark my words ma'am. Umbridge is a dead woman walking."

Harry headed straight up to his dorm. A trick I was trying to pull, but my boys intercepted me halfway across the room.

"So how was detention?" Fred asked.

"If you ever do this again Libra, don't hold back, because the entertainment value needs to be worth listening to Angelina planning your death." Lee said.

"I'll keep that in mind next time." The acid in my tone made them flinch. I felt bad, so I eased up. "I just want to fly guys. I'll be back within an hour."

"It's ten at night. You'll end up going into the Whomping Willow, not to mention that you won't be allowed outside this late at night." Lee said cautiously.

"What?" I turned and looked at the clock. I knew a lot of time had passed in Umbridge's office, but I didn't know it had been that long. Now I can't even fly to clear my head. I just have to sit and think. Frustrated I sat on the nearest couch and rubbed my face with my hands, momentarily forgetting about the blood quills.

George sat next to me and put an arm over my shoulders. "What's wrong love?"

Fred took my right hand. "Also what happened here?"

Reflexively I yanked my hand back. "Umbridge is going to be the death of me."

"Why's that?" George asked, keeping his tone soothing so I don't boil over on them.

"She's found a way to get inside my head. And now she's just toying with my mind."

"How?" He asked.

These guys were by best friends and one of them was my boyfriend. I didn't want to keep secrets from them, and besides they would figure it out a different way if I didn't tell them. I pulled the wrap off my hand and held it out for them to see.

"How did she do this to you?" Fred seethed. He always was the more outgoing one, both in socializing and confronting.

"Technically I did it to myself. She had us do lines. With blood quills. Nasty things. What you write with them gets written on your other hand."

"That can't be legal." Lee said staring at my hand.

"I must remember my roots" Fred read out loud. "She definitely figured out how to get in your head."

I bit my lip to keep from losing it right there.

Fred and Lee saw and knew what it meant. Lee leaned over to give me a hug. "We love you kid. Don't forget that." Then he headed up the stairs.

Fred seemed dead set of cracking a couple ribs with his hug. "Things will be better in the morning Lee Lee. You'll see."

Even after they left I still just sat there.

"You don't have to keep the mask on with any of us. Especially me."

"The dark side is in my DNA. What if I can't stay out of it?"

"Hey." He put his hand under my chin to guide my eyes to his. "There is no way that will happen. You may be a little too fierce for your own good, but you fight for the people you care about. Someone who's gone dark wouldn't do that. They would run and save themselves."

I held up my hand. "The worst part is, I don't want to remember, but I can't forget."

He gave a small smile. "I can help with that. At least for a little while." He said pressing his lips to mine.


	14. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

The next morning I was woken up by the sound of people whispering. Confused I cracked my eyes open a bit. After registering what my surroundings were they flew open and I jumped up. We had freaking fell asleep in the Common Room.

Before I could tell all the gawkers to leave Hermione came down and started shooing people to breakfast. Once the room had cleared out a bit she gave me a look. A very angry look.

I slowly raised my hands in surrender. "We just fell asleep."

Unconvinced she looked at George who was following my lead with the hands thing. "Nothing happened"

She gave a huff, and left.

"I think she's going to kill us." I said.

"Only if she catched you guys again." Fred said with a wicked grin. "Next time try to be a little more discrete."

I put my hands on his shoulders. "I am going to say this very slowly so you can understand me. We. Just. Fell. Asleep. Got it?"

"Whatever you say." He replied with a wink.

There was going to be no way to win this. "You're lucky you're one of my best friends. Or I would have to kill you."

Fred placed his hands over his heart, mocking injury. "Libra how could you be so cruel."

I held up my right hand. "It's in my blood." I completely killed the mood, but at the moment I really didn't care. I just wanted the whole week to be over.

Fast forward two weeks and I was still in detention with Umbridge and Angelina was about ready to throttle me. Turns out I was way too much of a smartass to last more than half an hour in Umbridge's class. Friday night after detention I found the boys waiting for me in the Common room, with Hermione.

"What did you guys do?" I asked plopping down on the couch next to George.

"Nothing love." He said. "Hermione just wants to run a brilliant idea past us."

I looked at Hermione.

"Well, I've been thinking that since it's clear that Umbridge has no intention of teaching us how to defend ourselves we would have to learn a different way."

"You mean figure it out ourselves?"

"Not really. I was thinking Harry could teach us."

"Not a bad idea. Crazy kid has done more battles with evil than any one of us. Where would we hold these classes that are going to be totally unapproved?"

"We're holding a meeting in Hogsmeade tomorrow to sort everything out. Will you guys come?"

I glanced at the boys. They looked as pumped as I was. "I think you can add this little band of rule breakers to the list. Where and when?"

The next morning could not have come fast enough. I practically bounced down the stairs in my jeans, black leather jacket, and boots. "Today is going to be awesome." I announced when I met the boys at the bottom of the stairs.

"George, I hate to break it to you, but your girlfriend has been replaced by an imposter. This person is way too chipper." Fred whispered loudly.

"Funny." I deadpanned. "Now come on. We need to move fast if we want to hit up Zonko's before going to the Hog's Head."

We ended up needing to sprint to make the meeting because they did not want to leave Zonko's. When we got there the place was filled with Hogwarts students. "There's a lot of people here." I whispered.

Fred rolled his eyes and went up to the bar. "Hi. Could we have…twenty-five butterbeers, please?"

The guy glared at him before pulling out the bottles.

"Cheers. Cough up everyone, I don't have enough gold for all of these."

When it was my turn to take a glass I tossed a little more on the counter and said, "I'll take a firewhiskey."

The guy raised his eyebrows, but poured me a glass anyway.

When I sat down Fred and George were looking mildly amused, and Hermione was burning a hole into my soul. "Guys, it's just one and I have at least one more week of detention with Umbridge."

When Hermione didn't say anything Ron leaned over. "How come you aren't yelling at her?"

I smirked when I heard him. "Cause you're a prefect and I don't follow many rules. Are we starting this meeting or not?"

Once everyone had settled into a seat Hermione stood up. "Er. Wll, hi." Well you know why you're here. Erm… well Harry here had this idea-" Harry threw her a wicked glare. "I mean I had the idea. That it might be good if people who wanted to study Defense Against the Darks Arts- really study it, not the rubbish Umbridge is doing with us. I thought it would be good if we took matters into our own hands. And by that I mean learning how to defend ourselves properly, not just theory, but real spells."

"You want to pass your Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. too though I bet." Michael Corner broke in.

"Of course I do. But I want to be properly trained in Defense because...because Lord Voldemort is back."

Everyone promptly began freaking out at his name, but at the same time trying to cover up their fear.

Hermione continued on. "Well… that's the plan anyway. If you want to join us, we need to decide how we're going to-"

"Where's the proof that You-Know-Who's back?" A Hufflepuff interrupted her.

"Well Dumbledore believes it-"

"You mean Dumbledore believes him." He said nodding in Harry's direction.

"Who are you?" Ron asked.

"Zacharias Smith and I think we've got the right to know exactly what makes him say You-Know-Who's back."

Hermione tried to intervene. "Look, that's not really what this meeting is supposed to be about-"

"It's okay Hermione." Harry said. He looked Zacarias straight in the eye. "What makes me say You-Know-Who is back? I saw him. Dumbledore told the whole school what happened last year, and if you don't believe him, you don't believe me, and I'm not wasting an afternoon trying to convince anyone."

"All Dumbledore told us last year was that Cedric Diggory got killed by You-Know-Who and that you brought Diggory's body back to Hogwarts. He didn't give us details, he didn't tell us exactly how Diggory got murdered, I think we'd all like to know-"

"If you've come to hear exactly what it looks like when Voldemort murders someone I can't help you." Harry burst out. "I don't want to talk about Cedric Diggory, all right? So if that's what you're here for, you might as well clear out."

Zacharias went to open his mouth again.

I stood up. "If you don't want to believe that Voldemort is back, fine. But you can't deny that something is up. Cedric murdered, Dumbledore's reputation being torn to shreds, the Ministry refusing to even investigate the fact that Voldemort might be back, and the fact the Ministry spontaneously decided that no Hogwarts student should be properly trained in how to defend themselves against the Dark Arts. Something shady of going on and we need to be able to hold our own."

There as about thirty seconds of awkward silence before Hermione spoke again. "So, like I was saying...if you want to learn some defense, then we need to work out how we're going to do it, how often we're going to meet and where we're going to

A random girl interrupted her. "It it true you can produce a Patronus?"

Everyone's ears perked up at that.

"Yeah." Harry said. A little more defensively than was necessary.

"A corporeal Patronus?"

"You don't know Madam Bones do you?"

"She's my auntie. I'm Susan Bones. She told me about your hearing. So is it really true? You make a stag Patronus?"

"Yes." Harry answered.

Lee's shout made me jump. "Blimey, Harry! I never knew that!"

Fred grinned. "Mum told Ron not to spread it around. She said you got enough attention as it was."

"She's not wrong." Harry mumbled.

"And did you kill a basilisk with that sword in Dumbledore's office? Terry Boot asked.

I could tell Harry was starting to get a little embarrassed with people bringing up every badass thing he's done since first year. Knowing that the questions were just going to keep coming I said, "Yes he did. And he saved the Sorcerer's stone from Voldemort, and let's not forget all the tasks he did last year. He's freaking brilliant. Now that we have that established, let's move on"

Everyone looked at Harry again.

"Look," he said. I had a lot of help with that stuff-"

"Are you trying to weasel your way out of showing us any of this stuff?" Zacarias asked.

"Here's an idea," Ron said. "Shut your mouth."

"Well we've all turned up to learn from him, and now he's telling us he can't' really do any of it."

Fred immediately shifted into protective mode. "That's not what he said," he snarled.

George went for a less direct threat. "Would you like us to clean out your ears for you?" He asked as he pulled this some lethal- looking metal thing out a a Zonko's bag.

I had no idea what is was or where they got it, but it sure as hell made the git nervous. I finished the threat off. "Or any part of your body really. We're not fussy about where we stick this."

Hermione tried to draw attention away from the fact that we openly threatened that git's life. "Yes, well, moving on. The point is, are we agreed we want to take lessons from Harry?"

Everyone murmured their agreement.

"Right. The next question is how often are we going to do it. I really don't think there's any point in meeting less than once a week."

Before Angelina opened her mouth I said, "We need to make sure if it won't conflict with Quidditch. Any matches or any practices."

"I'm sure we can find a night that suits everyone, but you know this is important. We're talking about learning to defend ourselves against Voldemort's Death Eaters."

And then things clicked in Zacharias's head. "If we want to defend ourselves against Death Eaters, why is she here?" He asked pointing at me.

George moved to stand up. I pulled him back into his seat while standing up myself. "I am not a Death Eater. My parents might support Voldemort, but I don't. If you haven't heard the latest gossip I'll fill you in: I've been officially cut out of their lives. Really, this is news from the first week get yourself together. Besides having me around gives you an advantage. I know how they think. I can give you the best prediction on what attacks they will use and when they will use them. Now I don't know about the rest of you, but to me once a week sounds like a great way to start." I sat back down and downed the last bit of my firewhiskey.

"Well other the other thing is deciding where we're going to meet."

Everyone went silent trying to think of a place.

After a few minutes Katie Bell suggested the library.

"I can't see Madam PInce being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in the library." Mark my words, Harry's snark was going to be the end of him, not Voldemort.

"Unused classroom?" Dean suggested.

"Yeah," Ron said. "McGonagall might let us use hers. She let Harry use it last year for the Triwizard."

"Right well, we'll try to find somewhere. We'll send a message around when we've got a time and place for the first meeting." She pulled some parchment and a quill from her bag. "I think everyone should write their name down, just so we know who was here. But I also think we all should agree not to shout about what we're doing, So if you sign, you're agreeing to not tell Umbridge-or anyone else- what we're up to."

Fred immediately reached for the paper and put down his signature before passing it along to the rest of us. Zacharias argued against it, but eventually signed it. Silence descended over the room as it sank in to everyone what we had all agreed to.

Fred stood up. "Well, time's ticking. George, Lee, Libra, and I have got items of a sensitive nature to purchase, we'll be seeing you all later."

We headed out the door and immediately made a right into the alley beside the building where we found Mundungus waiting for us.

Since time was short and it scared the crap out of Mundungus when I flipped to borderline sociopath mode I was nominated to run negotiations. "Afternoon Mundungus."

"Fifteen Galleons for the lot. I'm not going any lower so let's not waste time for any of us."

I raised an eyebrow. "Slow down. We have enough time to at least make sure what we're getting is worth the price you're charging."

He looked annoyed but he opened up the bag.

I scanned over the Tentacula seeds. It was more than he got for us the last time. "Fair enough." His expression went from stone cold to happy to surprised. "That look better be from shock that I can be agreeable and not because you're ripping us off." I warned keeping my tone low and dead calm.

His eyes got as big as saucers. "Oh no. No. There is no way I would ever rip you off. I-"

I cut him off. "I'm convinced." I took the bag from him and handed him the gold. "Now go."

Business done we started the trek back to the castle.


End file.
